


Unspeakably Complicated Circumstances

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Unspeakably Complicated Circumstances [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Cedric Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 40,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Cedric survived the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Nargles and Assignations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry asks Luna what she thinks about a certain conversation.

Harry pushed open the door to greenhouse three, searching for the half-withered Pustulating Pod that he planned on attempting to revive.  
  
"Hello, Harry." A girl with pale blonde hair, dressed in a strange amalgamation of safari khakis and a Sherlock Holmes get-up, was prowling through Professor Sprout's leftover supply of mistletoe.  
  
Harry drew up short. "Hello…"  
  
"Luna. Luna Lovegood."  
  
He recognized the name only enough to know that people called her "Loony."  
  
"Er...did you lose something?" Harry set his book bag down on the bench and rifled through it for his Herbology textbook.  
  
Luna shook her head, her radish-shaped earrings twinkling against the paleness of her hair. "I'm hunting for nargles."  
  
Nargles? Perhaps they called her "Loony" for good reason. "Okay. I - I'll leave you to it."  
  
Luna hummed an affirmative and then lunged at a particularly large bunch.  
  
A voice in Harry's head, annoyingly similar to Hermione's, reminded him to mind his manners and not comment on the strange behavior. He turned away to fetch his plant. The poor thing looked decidedly withered, but a hint of green amidst the dried and wrinkled brown gave him hope that it was, just barely, alive.   
  
"Cedric was looking for you, by the way."  
  
Harry jumped.  
  
Luna popped out from behind an imposing silver beech and cast him a dreamy smile. "Said he wanted to talk to you."  
  
Harry hoped the weak winter light streaming in through the glass was dim enough to hide his furiously red face.  
  
"Did he, er, say what about?"  
  
Luna shook her head, reaching up to poke a particularly large bunch of mistletoe.  
  
"Did he say where I could find him?"  
  
"He said he'd already mentioned a meeting place to you; that you would remember." Luna continued searching, blessedly oblivious to Harry's increasing blush and nervous fidgeting. "Well, he didn't say it to me so much as murmur it to himself, but I suppose he wouldn't have said it aloud if he hadn't wanted someone to hear."  
  
Harry's heart beat a trip-hammer rhythm. The last time he'd talked to Cedric had been right after the Yule Ball. The older boy had stopped him on the stairs and said - and said to --  
  
"Hey Luna." Harry set down his pruning shears and turned to face her, filled with a sudden mix of determination and trepidation.  
  
She paused in her search and turned those limpid blue eyes at him. "Yes, Harry?"  
  
Harry was struck with a bout of Gryffindor courage. Momentarily he wondered if he could bottle it and save it for his next - inevitable - encounter with Voldemort.  
  
"If, say, some older bloke came up to you, and well, he said..." Harry trailed off. How could he explain it? He would rather explain to Luna than to Hermione, who would question and dissect and want to _know_ things and then tell a teacher. Luna seemed like the type who would just listen.  
  
Harry squared his shoulders and deepened his voice a bit in imitation. Then he slid up to Luna, leaned down, and adopted a conspiratorial tone. "You know the prefects' bathroom on the fifth floor?"  
  
She shook her head; Harry plowed ahead.  
  
"It's not a bad place for a bath."  
  
Luna blinked at him.  
  
"Take your egg and…mull things over in the hot water or something." And Harry stepped back.  
  
Luna blinked at him some more.  
  
Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Luna, if some older bloke came up to you and just said what I said, what would you think?"  
  
"That I should dunk my golden puzzle egg in the bath water," she said. "It's a hint for the tournament, obviously. Are those allowed?"  
  
They weren't, but no one was playing fair and no one - save Harry's best friends - understood that Harry didn't want this tournament nonsense. He would take what help he could get in order to stay alive.  
  
"Well, no, they're not, but --"  
  
"You said an older bloke?" Something alarmingly lucid glinted in Luna's blue eyes. "If that Ludo Bagman said that to you, I'd say tell the headmaster."  
  
Harry carded a hand through his hair, frustrated. "No, Luna, Mr. Bagman isn't trying to make me _cheat_ \--"  
  
"Not about the cheating, Harry." Luna's tone was very patient. She tilted her head at him like a curious bird, and from her expression Harry was aware that he had missed some crucial piece of Luna-speak.  
  
"What about, then?"  
  
"The chatting-up, of course." Luna turned back to the mistletoe. "The prefect's bathroom is a notorious destination for _assignations_."  
  
Harry had heard Hermione use some impressive words before, but he hadn't thought Luna had it in her to make a highbrow dictionary entry sound so scandalous.  
  
"Ludo Bagman is far too old for you," Luna continued. Her voice was dreamy, but the lucidity of her words was starting to frighten him. "If Cedric said that to you, on the other hand, it wouldn't be so bad, would it?"  
  
Now he _was_ frightened. Utterly.  
  
Still, it was a relief to know that he hadn't completely misread that conversation with Cedric.  
  
It was less of a relief to realize that Cedric might _like_ Harry the way he liked Cho. The way Harry thought he liked Cho. He thought back to the word _assignation_ and how naughty it sounded. He could only form hazy mental pictures of what might go on in the prefects' bathroom between two students, and he found himself blushing even more.  
  
Cedric Diggory was the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain; a prefect; older, and far more handsome than Harry. Cedric was popular, and he seemed by all means a very decent chap – nice even. Harry remembered seeing Cedric smiling at a group of younger Hufflepuff girls who were all eager to meet their school champion. Cedric was more than nice – he was sweet. Harry was just Harry, a scruffy-haired mite who wore his whale-sized cousin's hand-me-downs and had a Dark Lord after him.  
  
"What makes you think Cedric would say something like that to me?" Harry asked.  
  
Luna laughed, the sound like gently falling chimes. "Honestly, Harry, half the girls at this school would fall over themselves to get an invite like that from Cedric, not to mention a good tenth of the boys."  
  
A tenth? Harry started doing bad math in his head and abandoned the notion as soon as his calculations landed on Seamus Finnegan.  
  
Luna cast him a glance out of the corner of her eye. "Also, you blush every time someone mentions him." She paused, then added, "You should say yes. It might do you some good."  
  
The resulting silence was a study in one-sided awkwardness. Harry gaped while Luna searched the mistletoe. After a few minutes, she tipped her safari hat back a bit and shaded her eyes.  
  
"I think the nargles need some bribing. I'll be back with treats." And she drifted out of the greenhouse, as dreamy and Luna as ever.  
  
Harry watched her go and wondered why people thought she was loony. She was loony, but she saw _everything_. She saw the things Harry managed to hide from Hermione, who was a bloodhound when she was curious.  
  
Harry sighed and turned to his plant, which looked even more pitiful than before. He picked up the pruning shears and promptly dropped them on his foot when the greenhouse door swung open.  
  
"Cedric will be in the library leading the Hufflepuff First Year study group, by the way." Luna punctuated her helpful hint with a wave and vanished once more.  
  
Harry stared at the closed door and said, belatedly, "Ow."


	2. Of Nargles and Assignations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cedric isn't the sort of lad who faints. Really.

The first time it happened, Cedric was in Defense Against the Dark Arts. No one thought much of it at the time. After all, half the Ravenclaw students had fainted as well, and Mary Fairchild had to be taken to the infirmary for a cracked head. The fact that Cedric had fainted during Professor Moody's demonstration of the Unforgivables wasn't that remarkable.  
  
Cedric's dorm mates ribbed him a bit for swooning like a girl. But Cedric hadn't actually fainted.  
  
When the first curse hit the air, Cedric felt a headache come on. Amidst the aftershocks of Imperio, Cedric's mind was a humming blank that he couldn't control, and it hurt trying to think past it. Then came Crucio, and his entire body went numb. Cedric was sure it was shock - shock and horror that a former Auror would show these curses to students. But he couldn't feel his fingers, couldn't feel his own tongue as he tried to speak. And when the final curse hit - death in six syllables - his wand dropped from his nerveless fingers, his head was fit to split, and his world went white.  
  
The next thing he knew, Cedric was floating near the top of the classroom, watching in detached amusement as the students panicked and Moody tried to keep them calm. Mary Fairchild had cracked her head open on her desk, and six of her Ravenclaw friends were equally unconscious. Cedric noted his own body with mild interest where it was slumped over, as if he'd done the unthinkable and fallen asleep during class.  
  
His own body.  
  
With that, Cedric began to panic. How could he be up near the ceiling and down at his desk at the same time? He looked at his hand, really looked, and realized he was translucent, colorless.  
  
Terror began to claw at him.  
  
Cedric tried to cry out, tried to ask for help, but his dorm mates had just noticed his body.  
  
Ben shook his shoulder. "Ced, mate, wake up."  
  
 _Up here!_ Cedric tried to yell.  
  
Simon shook his other shoulder. It looked as though he was yelling, but Cedric could barely hear him. "Diggory, come on, wake up!"  
  
Cedric opened his mouth to shout again, but something was tugging at his feet, twining around his ankles, snaking up his legs, pulling him down, down. Cedric attempted one last cry before the room turned into a red haze, and then he opened his eyes.  
  
He was alive.  
  
Simon clapped him on the shoulder, relief stark on his face. "You gave us a bit of a scare there, Diggory. Didn't think you were the swooning sort."  
  
Ben laughed. "So Captain Diggory isn't as brave and wonderful as all the ladies think, eh?"  
  
"I didn't swoon." He hadn't fainted; _he'd died._ Cedric looked down at his shaking hands. He curled them into fists and shoved them into his pockets, hoping the others wouldn’t notice his labored breathing.  
  
"I think the evidence rather points in the other direction." Ben straightened up and turned to survey the mess.  
  
"I'm not the fainting type," Cedric insisted. His head spun, and he had the indescribable urge to run back to his dorm room, fling himself onto his bed, and draw the drapes tightly closed.  
  
Simon ruffled his hair and laughed. "If you say so."  
  
Professor Moody beckoned. "Get over here, lads. The Ravenclaws need to get to the infirmary."  
  
Cedric followed his dorm mates to help sort out the mess of unconscious students.  
  
"Glad you aren't one of them, eh?" Simon asked.  
  
Cedric was just glad he wasn't dead. But perhaps that's what happened to people who passed out – they had strange, out-of-body experiences. Cold prickled across the back of his neck as he remembered the sensation of staring down at his own body. He needed answers. But who could he possibly talk to without looking like a loon? Apart from Luna Lovegood, who would have plenty of outlandish theories of what had happened.  
  
A thought sprung into Cedric's mind: he could ask Harry Potter. Harry had seen the Killing Curse before, so maybe he knew what it was like. Except Harry had been a baby at the time, and maybe it would be insensitive to ask Harry about the night his parents had died.  
  
Harry, with his big green eyes and perpetually lost expression.  
  
Cedric felt an inexplicable blush cross his face and tried to fight it off.  
  
"It was a bit odd, the way it happened,” Simon said later as they headed down the corridor. “I mean, Fairchild and the Ravenclaw kids – they all turned this fantastic shade of greeny-white and then toppled over like felled garden gnomes. You, though – you were awake one moment, zonked out the next. At first I thought you’d fallen asleep, but then I realized you must have fainted, very quiet-like, as if you didn't want to bother anyone. Although you didn’t look like you had fainted. And, well, you didn't quite look like you were just having a kip either."  
  
"I didn't?" Cedric’s heart thudded in his chest. What did that mean?  
  
"You – well, you looked sort of dead, really." Simon laughed. "That's naff, though, innit?"  
  
Ben reached out and smacked Simon upside the head. "Stop harping on about it like an old hag. Diggory's good and alive. We need him to win the Tournament, after all."  
  
Simon nodded. "That's right. Diggory here is living proof that Hufflepuffs have what it takes, right?"  
  
Cedric wasn't listening. He had to talk to Harry. That was the best way to get an answer without his dorm mates finding out and taking the mickey. A chat with Harry about the Killing Curse – that wouldn't come off as chatting up, would it? Because it wasn’t, really. It was professional. A very _platonic_ chat between fellow Champions.   
  
Ben mimed pressing a badge on the lapel of his robes, the gesture angled so Cedric wouldn't see.  
  
Simon hid a smile.  
  
"Come on, Champion." Ben put a hand on Cedric's shoulder and steered him past a group of blushing, giggling Ravenclaw girls. "You won't be winning any more tasks if we let you starve. To the Great Hall with you now."  
  
Cedric stared at his shoes and wondered what, exactly, was the difference between looking asleep and looking dead.


	3. Of House Elves and Hufflepuffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dobby delivers a note.

"Dobby is happy to do _anything_ for Master Harry." The little elf beamed up at him.

Harry winced, hoping no one had noticed him slip into this empty classroom. The volume of Dobby's voice was certain to alert someone to the matter.

He leaned down and dropped his voice to a whisper. "It's nothing special, Dobby. I just need you to deliver this letter to Cedric Diggory, all right? Cedric Diggory and no one else. Right into his hands - not left in his dorm or anything, understand?"

"Dobby understands."

"And you're not to tell him who it's from."

"Never, Master Harry, never!"

Harry smiled wearily at the elf's exuberance. "Thanks, Dobby."

Again with the watery eyes and adoring smile. "Dobby is always happy to serve Master Harry!" Dobby plucked the parchment from Harry's fingers and promptly vanished.

Harry reeled back, then gathered his wits and slipped out of the classroom, just avoiding being seen by a group of third years. He headed for the Great Hall, hoping his meeting with Dobby had been brief enough that Hermione wouldn't start asking questions. Luckily for Harry, Hermione was busy hounding Ron about something. Harry tucked into the bangers and mash without disturbance.

He was halfway through his second helping of mash - he was very hungry - when a cry went up at another table. Harry craned his neck along with every other student in the Great Hall to see what the fuss was.

At the Hufflepuff table, Cedric Diggory blushed as Dobby the house elf sketched a low bow and handed him a piece of folded parchment.

Dobby who was standing _on top of the Hufflepuff table._

Harry would have banged his head against the table if it hadn't meant getting mash all over his face. Listening to Dobby earnestly tell Cedric that the letter was for him and only him made Harry reconsider the mash. A chorus of hoots rose up, mostly from a group of boys who Harry could only assume were Cedric's dorm mates. They were probably teasing him about an admirer, and from Cedric's furious - and oddly attractive - blush, no doubt he thought the same thing.

Would Cedric get the right idea, or the wrong one? Mostly Harry just wanted to ask him more about the second task and the golden egg. _Meet me as previously discussed._ That sounded plenty business-like, didn't it? "As previously discussed." Hermione would be proud.

Although, if Luna's observations turned out to be correct – and some small, insistent part of Harry hoped they were – then maybe, once the tournament talk was done, Harry could find out firsthand what _assignation_ meant.

Dobby bowed once more and vanished. At least Cedric didn't open the note then and there.

Harry eyed the mash once more, sighed, and pushed his plate away. It had been foolish of him to assume Dobby would be discrete without being told. Now he would just have to spend the rest of the day in hiding, waiting to see what happened once Cedric responded to the contents of the letter.


	4. Of Whispers and Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neville thinks about beauty and tries to remember potions and spells.

Neville noticed beauty at odd, random, unfortunate moments. It was the source of his clumsiness, really, but he wasn't about to admit that to the rest of his class. How, exactly, did he explain that he nearly blew himself up during Potions due to an ingredient wrongly added in a moment of vast distraction when he noticed, for the first time, that Professor Snape had beautiful hands?

And he did have beautiful hands, graceful and sure. That didn't stop him from being a scary bastard.

Beauty was what had led Neville to his fascination with Herbology. Plants were beautiful – often far more beautiful than people, and far more benign if one had just the right touch. Most of Neville's classmates were absolutely terrified of the Bubotubers, but Neville found them beautiful in a quirky, repugnant sort of way. His favorite plants were the puffapods. As a child he'd taken great delight in dropping the beans to watch flowers burst forth everywhere.

Neville thought he'd learned his lesson by now about being distracted by beauty at inopportune times. But it seemed his hyperactive mind was determined to discover all the different types of loveliness in the world and secret them away to treasure later.

He headed toward the Gryffindor dormitories, trying furiously to remember the potions assignment he'd read, to remember something other than the lovely diagram of aconite in the middle of the second page.

"Come on, Nev," he muttered to himself. "What comes after the chopped daisy root? Come _on!_ "

He paused, thinking hard, but it was impossible. The answer wasn't coming. Neville resolved to draw all the plants used in the potions as soon as he had free time. Maybe he'd be able to remember them if he liked how they looked.

He sighed, hitched his book bag higher on his shoulder, and continued walking toward some of his favorite paintings. He was about to smile at the painting of the girl in the white dress, the one who picked flowers and waved at him, but she wasn't in her frame. Neville checked the nearby canvas to see if she was visiting the old witch who was constantly having tea, and he realized that all of the paintings were empty.

Cold terror gripped his insides. The last time the frames were empty had been because of Sirius Black.

Neville drew his wand, hexes and jinxes tripping over themselves in his mind as he advanced warily down the corridor. There, just ahead in an alcove, was a figure tall enough to be a person.

_Was it rictusallegra? Or Tarantasempra? Or maybe Tarantallegra?_

Neville silently cursed his horrible memory and tightened the grip on his wand. If all else failed, a good _jab_ would startle the enemy. He edged forward to get a good look at the intruder, to get a proper aim -

And nearly dropped his wand. This, right here, was beauty unimagined.

Neville's breath caught in his chest and his eyes widened. He drank in as much of the vision as he could, desperate to commit it to memory before the moment was broken.

Cedric Diggory had Harry Potter in his arms. He lounged against the wall, arms wrapped around Harry's waist as Harry leaned up to kiss him. The kisses were languid and soft, deep and slow. Harry's lovely seeker’s hands were tangled in Cedric's hair. The curve of Harry's neck as he arched into Cedric's embrace, the dark crescent of Cedric's eyelashes against the line of his elegant cheekbone - every motion and moment was an aching, indescribable beauty that Neville wanted to watch forever.

Cedric broke the kiss softly and pulled back. He smiled down at Harry, and Neville's chest tightened.

Cedric whispered something to Harry who murmured something in reply, the entire conversation too soft for Neville to hear. Cedric placed a finger against Harry's lips, hushing him, and Harry's eyes fluttered closed. Cedric whispered some more then leaned down. He brushed his lips over Harry's once, twice.

Harry's resulting smile was one of utter bliss, and Neville realized that they were in love.

Harry darted in for one last small kiss. When he stepped away from Cedric, Neville could see that Cedric's robes were suggestively rumpled, and he blushed. Cedric pushed away from the wall, straightening up with a languid roll of his body that would have made the girls of Hogwarts swoon, but he seemed oblivious to the gracefulness of the motion, aware only of Harry's blushing and pleased smile.

Cedric whispered one more time and stepped out of the alcove.

Neville flung himself down behind the nearest suit of armor. He shut his eyes, held his breath, and hoped no one would notice him.

He heard Cedric's footsteps fade, but didn't hear Harry's. After years of sharing a dormitory with the boy, Neville knew what Harry's footsteps sounded like. He knew them well enough to know when Harry was angry, tired, or sneaking out. Neville wondered why he hadn't noticed Harry sneaking out recently. He reckoned it was because he had been studying himself into oblivion each night.

Neville opened his eyes and peered cautiously around the statue, just in time to see Harry turn around and spot him.

Harry froze. Neville lifted a hand and waved weakly.

"Neville," he hissed, stepping closer. "What are you --"

"Studying. Potions," Neville whispered back.

Harry closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "You saw."

"I saw."

"How much did you see?"

"Enough to know that he loves you, and you love him too."

Harry's eyes opened. "What? No – it's not what you think."

Neville searched Harry's gaze. "What is it, then?"

Harry tore his eyes away. He said nothing, merely stared at his shoes and fidgeted with his wand.

"I won't tell anyone," Neville said.

Harry nodded warily. "Thanks."

"Really," Neville said, earnest now. "Unless - unless you want me to?"

"No!" Harry shouted. He clapped a hand over his mouth and darted a furtive glance down the length of the corridor. Neville cast a look about as well, sure that Snape would materialize at any moment and give them detention.

"No, I - it's complicated. Cedric and I are both champions, and then, er, you know, there's Cho..." Harry sighed and swiped a tired hand over his face, almost dislodging his glasses.

Neville nodded. "Of course. I won't tell anyone." He knew, better than anyone, how to keep a secret. After all, Harry probably thought Neville's parents were dead. Hesitantly he asked, "How?"

Harry's shy smile was the most beautiful thing Neville had seen that entire night.

"It was Luna's fault, really. Luna and Dobby." Harry held out a hand to help Neville to his feet. "Cedric was right, though, we're out far past curfew."

Neville dusted himself off and scooped up his book bag. He fell into step beside Harry as they headed for the Gryffindor dormitories. They paused at each corner, checking for Filch and Mrs. Norris, darting from doorway to doorway like a pair of thieves.

And with each step, in a hushed exchange of whispers, Neville pieced together the story of how Harry fell in love.


	5. Of Unforgivables and Unspeakables

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cedric figures it out. So do the Unspeakables.

Perhaps Cedric should have figured it out the second time it happened. One moment he was on an adrenaline rush, victorious for having made it past one more maze challenge, the next he was on the ground, body numb and mind frozen as he listened to himself scream beneath the onslaught of Krum's _crucio_. Cedric was screaming, could hear his own voice twisting horribly in the air, but he couldn't feel a thing.

But he stopped trying to figure it out once Harry saved him, forgot about it entirely when he saw the Cup.

Cedric wanted to win, but not more than anything. Harry, of course, was too noble for his own good. After he counted down and they grabbed onto the Cup, Cedric had half a second to note that the tug and whirl of a portkey was nothing like being tugged back into his own body.

The third time, Cedric began to understand what was happening to him. Before, the curse hadn't been directed at him. This time he'd been the intended target, and he'd _felt_ it as he was thrown from his own body. In fact, he had seen the light of the Killing Curse wash over his corpse.

He had what felt like forever to puzzle it out as he watched Harry, then his parents cry over him. Whatever had happened to Cedric, he wasn't dead. He didn't know much about dying, but he was quite sure it didn't involve asking the boy he loved to take his body back in case his soul re-entered it and he was left to the mercy of Death Eaters.

It hurt, watching his parents cry, watching Harry cry, being unable to stop any of it. Cedric hurt, ached all over, like the time he'd collided with Katie Bell midair during his first quidditch match. He wished he could do something to stop the pain. Something - anything. But he couldn't talk anymore, couldn't touch anyone. Cedric felt half numb, half raw.

From the ceiling of one of the infirmary’s private rooms - after Madame Pomfrey had banned all but his parents, his head of house, and the Headmaster - Cedric came out of his numb daze and began to panic. He'd gone back into his body once before, but could he do it again? What if last time was just a fluke? Maybe he was a ghost. Maybe he was dead. Then he remembered the Cruciatus curse. No one came away from that without feeling a thing, so what the hell was going on?

Eventually Madame Pomfrey convinced Cedric's parents to rest, promising to keep a vigil over his body for them. Cedric's mother cried harder and hugged Madame Pomfrey before Cedric's father managed to tug her away and lead her out of the room. Madam Pomfrey lit some soft candles and set them to hover beside the body's cot before she took up her post beside the door.

This time the sensation was slower and gentler, drawing Cedric down and back into his own body inch by inch so he could feel it gradually coming back to life.

The candlelight offered a pleasant glow when he finally opened his eyes.

Cedric could open his eyes. He was alive.

All the candles went out.

"Who's there?" Cedric's voice came out as a croak rather than as a threatening demand.

A black-cloaked figure glided forward out of the shadows.

Was it a Death Eater? Cedric’s heart leapt into his throat. He didn't have his wand, so he opened his mouth to yell for Madame Pomfrey.

"Don't bother. I was always ace at sleeping and muffling charms," said a girl’s voice, and the figure drew back its hood.

Cedric threw himself backwards and scrambled up the cot, away from the girl, until his back was pressed flat against the headboard.

The girl, only a few years older than Cedric, had a pretty face, too pretty, with perfect porcelain, doll-like features: a pink rosette mouth; elegant cheekbones softened by black satin ringlets; stark black eyelashes that formed a jagged crescent against her skin. Stark black lashes that Cedric realized - about half a second after he saw them - were stitches holding her eyelids closed. Permanently.

"Come along, Cedric Diggory. We don't have much time." Her voice was mellow and haunting.

"Who the hell are you?"

"My work is Unthinkable and my name is Unspeakable. Now come on, we don't have all night." Her tone went from sepulchral and mysterious to girlish and impatient in one go.

Cedric was too terrified to even move.

The girl tossed her head. "Diggory, get out of bed and up on your feet."

He found himself obeying, as if his body was detached from the screaming protests of his mind.

The girl tapped one small, silk slipper-shod foot. "Quickly now, come on. I thought seekers were fast."

As soon as he was standing, she darted forward and placed a black cloth bundle on the bed. Cedric saw it and shuddered, suddenly reminded of a similar black cloth bundle held by a rat-faced man called Wormtail.

"Take off your clothes," the girl said, fussing with the black cloth.

"What? No!"

"It's not as if I can see you. Take it off. Everything."

" _Everything?_ " Cedric echoed. Then he frowned. She couldn't see him? Even though her eyes were like - like _that_ , she moved as though she could see. How could she do what she was doing otherwise? But then Cedric noticed the subtle slide of her fingers against the cloth as she felt her way along.

"You can keep your pants on. Now strip - I need your robes." She paused in her fussing  
and thrust a set of plain black robes at him.

Cedric obeyed automatically, mind numb. Even if she really was blind - and he wasn't sure she was - he turned away to change. The robes fit perfectly, although Cedric supposed he shouldn't have been surprised.

He turned back to hand his robes to her and stopped.

Laid out on the cot was his body, perfect in every detail, from the scar on his knee from when he fell out of a tree at seven years old to the bruise on his ribs where he'd hit the ground dodging a spell in the maze.

The body was unmistakably dead.

That's what this meant, didn't it? He was going away with this strange girl and she was leaving a corpse that looked just like him in his place.

"Your clothes, please," the girl said, and jerked him out of his shell-shocked musing. Cedric handed them over, then stood back and watched as she dressed the body in his torn, mud-stained champion robes.

Her hands were gentle, careful as she drew one limp arm into a sleeve. There was a hesitance, pained and sorrowful, to her motions - as if she were saying goodbye. She wrangled on the other sleeve, and then she was buttoning the front of the robes, fingers deft. She paused, and Cedric watched as she placed a hand on the body's chest where its heart no longer beat.

"Who was he?" Cedric asked softly.

"The Unspeakable you're replacing." The girl's mouth hardened into a thin line. "Help me - we must hurry."

It was surreal, dressing his own corpse, but Cedric helped. When it was done, the girl stepped back and swept up her hood.

"Let's go." She turned and headed for the doors but Cedric refused to follow.

"Why are you taking me? Where are we going? Can’t I see my parents?"

"The Dark Lord will be back for you," the girl said. "After all, you're the other Boy Who Lived."

"What? I --"

"The duel you witnessed is the third time to date Harry Potter has fought off the Dark Lord in one form or another." The girl pushed open one of the doors. "The Dark Lord seeks immortality and it would appear that Harry Potter, who is the only known survivor of the Killing Curse, can give it to him. Do you want to find out what he'll do when he decides you could offer the solution to his lifelong quest instead?"

"Why would he think I could give him immortality?"

The girl's mouth curved up in a knowing smile. "You have survived the Killing Curse twice now, haven't you?"

"How do you know that?" Cedric hadn't told anyone the truth behind his "fainting" episode, not even Harry. He slid a hand toward the nearest weapon, one of Madame Pomfrey's floating candles.

"In class you passed out as Moody cast the curse, not after the little spider died. It seems your body can eject your spirit to avoid the effects of the Killing Curse." The girl turned away. "Now come on – I have deadlines."

Cedric didn't move. "I'm immune to Unforgivables. Is that what you're saying?"

"If you can come up with some other rational explanation for why you survived the Killing Curse twice, I'm open to suggestion."

"So I'm just supposed to go with you, then?" Cedric asked, voice low. "How do I know you're not a Death Eater?"

"I like to think I'm not masochistic enough to serve the man who killed my parents and then had my eyes sewn shut," the girl said flatly.

Cedric bit his lip. He knew better than to attempt to respond to that. "Well, is there any way I could tell my parents...goodbye?" he asked finally.

"As far as the wizarding world is concerned, Cedric Diggory is dead."

Her words hit him in the chest, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

The memory of Harry crying and clinging to his body, of his parents sobbing over him in the infirmary rushed to the forefront of Cedric's mind, and he staggered. Cedric suddenly understood with agonizing clarity. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he moaned softly.

The girl was at his side instantly, an arm around his waist to steady him. She eased him down to the floor so he was sitting on the cool flagstones, back up against the wall, hyperventilating. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply.

"What's going to happen now?" Cedric opened his eyes and looked at the girl.

Her head was bowed, face hidden behind the cowl of her cloak. "You'll follow me out of the castle and back to headquarters. You'll undergo the most rigorous training a man or woman can endure, and then you'll step out into the night to join in the fight against the Dark Lord."

"Will I ever see my parents again?"

"From a distance, perhaps, once beneath a blue moon, but they won't know it's you."

Cedric stared at the open window, at the huge summer moon, and felt a bleak resignation settle over him.

"Do I get a new name now or something? Since Cedric Diggory is dead and all."

"If you want one." Cedric glimpsed a shadow of a smile within the depths of the cowl's darkness. "Most of the ranks will just call you Unspeakable Diggory, though."

Cedric nodded. After a long moment, the girl made a move to stand.

"What do 'the ranks' call you, then?" Cedric asked.

She paused. "Unspeakable Fox."

Fox. Cedric knew the name. He'd heard it before --

"Let's go," she said.

"Do you have a first name?" Cedric asked.

She heaved herself to her feet and dusted herself off. "My first name is _unspeakable_."

"Really?"

"No."

"Then what is it? I think it's only fair, given that you know mine."

She hesitated, then offered, "Vadette."

"That's a very...noble pureblood name."

"Pureblood nothing. My parents were muggle hippies." Vadette sighed. "It means 'of the watch tower.' Ironic, I suppose." She moved toward the infirmary doors. "Are you ready to go, Mr. Diggory?"

He pushed himself to his feet. He started to say yes, then stopped himself.

"I need to leave a note."

"I told you - your parents lost their only son tonight, and nothing is going to change that."

"Not for them," Cedric said.

Vadette turned. "For who?"

"For Harry. Harry Potter."

"What? Why?"

Cedric's hands curled into fists. "Because he'll blame himself, thinking he killed me."

"That's ridiculous. A Death Eater killed you --"

"I know that, but I also know Harry. He was the one who suggested we both take the Cup. He's probably lying awake as we speak, ruining himself with the lie that he led me to my death." Cedric kept his voice low and steady. He refused to give ground on this.

"He won't be the only one who blames himself. Anyone who encouraged you to join, urged you to win - they'll all be wondering if they didn't send you to your death." Vadette lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. "Why let your _competition_ off the guilt hook?"

"You Unspeakables know a lot, but obviously you don't know everything," Cedric said.

Vadette's tone took on an edge of warning. "I don't think you understand how precarious your position is right now."

"I love him, and I've seen him hurt enough." Cedric's voice was sharp, sharp enough that Vadette actually flinched. "I _won’t_ just leave him."

Vadette drew her wand, and Cedric suddenly remembered that he was unarmed and arguing with a fully trained Unspeakable.

"You're dead, Cedric Diggory. Tragic at seventeen - handsome, a skilled quidditch player, prefect and all-around nice guy." Vadette's voice was utterly flat. "I'm dead. Tragic at six years old. We don't choose to leave the world of the living. When we die, we're kicked out."

"But I can't leave him. I _can't_."

He jerked back when Vadette reached out. She switched her wand to her other hand and reached out again.

"Hold still," she said, and the words, though soft, were an order. Cedric obeyed.

He closed his eyes when her fingertips brushed his jaw. Her hands were cold, and it took everything he had not to lash out, to throw her down and steal her wand and then go charging up to Gryffindor tower as if he were a foolhardy Gryffindor himself. But he held still and let her trace his features carefully.

She drew her hand back and then wrapped her arms around herself. She looked small and vulnerable then. Instead of a menacing figure in black, she was frail, utterly breakable. Cedric recognized the expression on her face; it was the same one she had worn, for a moment, while dressing the Unspeakable’s corpse.

"A letter. You cannot tell him that you're alive. You cannot tell him where you're going or what you can do. Just - just tell him that you love him."

Relief flooded Cedric's limbs. He nodded. "Thank you, Vadette."

"We can get some spare parchment in the library."

She turned away and started briskly through the infirmary doors.

"Hey - how do you know where the library is if you're blind and never came to Hogwarts?"

"I'm an Unspeakable, Mr. Diggory. Now that you're one of us, you'll find out soon enough."


	6. Of Partings and Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cedric leaves a letter

Harry waited until the others in the infirmary were asleep before he let himself cry. He buried his face in his pillow and sobbed as quietly as possible.

He couldn't shake the sensation of Cedric's cooling skin beneath his fingers, of Cedric's lifeless eyes gazing past him up at the sky.

"Cedric," Harry whispered. He could barely speak. "Cedric - don't go." Tears spilled afresh. "Don't leave me. _Please_."

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

Harry didn't notice a hand slip between the drapes behind him, didn't hear the softly cast sleeping charm. He merely drifted along with the charm into troubled sleep.

The hand placed a parchment beside Harry's head and stroked Harry's hair once, the motion slow and longing. A dark figure leaned over him, pressed a soft kiss in his hair, and whispered.

_"Till we meet again."_

Then the curtains settled back into place.

When Harry awoke in the morning, he found a letter beside him on his pillow. He fumbled for his glasses and pulled them on. The letter was sealed with red wax, though the seal was blank, a simple oval. Harry turned the letter over, and his heart leapt into his throat at his own name written in such a familiar hand.

 

Dear Harry,  
I love you. Win or lose, champion or plain old Hogwarts student, I love you. Though I may miss your smile and your voice and those glorious moments when we kiss, I am by your side, in spirit if not in body. The heavens and the earth may move to tear us apart, but I would give my magic and my soul to come back to you. In the hard times ahead, I shall remember your smile. Keep smiling, Harry. My world is without hope when it is without your smile. Shed no tears for missing me, but know that when I am by your side I will kiss each drop away. I love you now and always. I'll be waiting for you at the other end.  
Till we meet again.  
Always yours,  
Cedric

Harry stared at the letter and felt tears prick at his eyes once more. He reached up and wiped them away angrily. He hated crying and he was tired of crying. He wanted - he wanted this horrible, empty feeling to go away.

He wanted to see Cedric again.

"'Till we meet again,'" Harry murmured, tracing the words with his fingertips. "I'm sure you meant at the end of the summer."

***

When Harry took the parchment to Hermione later that day, she couldn't see what was written on it. But she knew enough spells to tell that the letter had been charmed to come to him at a certain time, originally after the last day of school. Then it had been set for some other event, some other default that she didn't understand.

Harry looked up the spell on his own and discovered it was usually meant for wills, to appear after the testator had turned a certain age. Or died.

He kept the letter tucked away in his trunk. On the nights he couldn't stand the loneliness and the nightmares he reread it and then closed his eyes, imagining he could hear Cedric's voice.

_Till we meet again._


	7. Of Boys and Boyfriends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being an Unspeakable has a learning curve. Cedric is running in circles, but Vadette has already reached her straight line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for some fast work from my beta, [](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile)[rotaryphones](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/)

Cedric yelped and hit the ground, then fired off another hex. He was fast, probably from years of honing his Seeker reflexes. From what Vadette knew of Cedric, he was too tall to be a Seeker properly anymore, but if rumors from Unspeakable Bloom (tragic at twenty-five, mother of two) were to be believed, Cedric had been incredible.

Well, if anything from Bloom was to be believed, Cedric Diggory was "the nicest guy in the world, " "absolutely beautiful," and "the best Seeker Hufflepuff House ever saw." Vadette knew she generally had to take Bloom's opinions with a sea full of salt, but when it came to Cedric, Bloom was possibly blinded merely by Cedric’s pretty face.

Vadette remembered what pretty meant, in a vague sense. She remembered that her mother had a pretty face, and pretty curls just like Vadette's, and that her mother had given her a pretty dress.

For a boy to have a pretty face - that made little sense. She supposed that Bloom had a deficiency in vocabulary and that Cedric Diggory was merely handsome, probably remarkably so. But handsome didn't matter when one skulked about in a dark, shield-charmed cloak all day attempting not to be noticed.

"On your feet, Diggory. Unspeakable Ezekiel is going easy on you. Do you think that the likes of Lucius Malfoy or Bellatrix Lestrange will be quite as nice?" Vadette felt a faint smile curve her lips. She'd spent years learning to perfect subtle facial expressions, and other people’s horrified reactions made the efforts worth it.

Vadette listened as Cedric and Ezekiel let loose another volley of spells.

"Nice?" Cedric echoed. He was panting, short of breath. "I think you have a rather strange definition of nice."

"And I think you have a rather strange definition of _paying attention_ ," Vadette returned, and was rewarded with another pained yelp as Cedric was downed by a stinging hex.  
Cedric was a quick learner; Vadette would give him that. He abandoned chatting and returned to the duel in earnest. Vadette could hear heavy footsteps pounding across the flagstone floor. That was Ezekiel, going in for physical intimidation to break his opponent's guard.

Vadette found Ezekiel's size comforting rather than intimidating. Every now and again he would give her a hug, and it was like being hugged by a warm, solid wall. She felt safe in his embrace. Others felt differently. Vadette had once heard a wizard drop his wand when faced by Ezekiel on the rampage.

Cedric, however, held his ground. He cast _tarantallegra_ and followed it up with a quick tripping jinx, and Vadette heard Ezekiel hit the ground with a grunt.

Vadette lifted her hands and clapped, the sound loud in the resulting silence as Cedric probably stared at his downed opponent in surprise.

"You're good, Diggory," she said. "Most wizards lose it when Ezekiel comes charging at them like that."

Cedric remembered to breathe again. "Thanks," he said, sounding tired. "It - it was nothing."

So modest. Vadette felt her mouth twist in amusement.

"Here, let me give you a hand," Cedric said, and Vadette listened to Ezekiel heave himself to his feet.

Cedric Diggory wasn't the nicest guy in the world, but he was uncommonly decent. The first time Vadette had defeated Ezekiel - and it had also been on the first try, before she'd discovered how big he was - she'd left him petrified on the ground for the instructor to rescue. The defeat had secured her reputation among the Unspeakables as one of the top field agents. Ezekiel had forgiven her for it, but after learning how kind Ezekiel was, Vadette regretted her callous treatment of him.

The other Unspeakables - save Bloom - rather thought it was unprecedented and perhaps a show of some sort of celebrity favoritism that Cedric be allowed into the ranks at a mere seventeen. Even Vadette, who had been raised in the catacombs below the Department of Mysteries by Unspeakable Swift, had not begun training until she was eighteen. It would have served Cedric well if he'd left Ezekiel where he was for the others to see, but Cedric was too decent for that.

Ezekiel lumbered off to change, and Vadette waited as Cedric's lighter tread approached.

"So, do I pass?"

"For now. Wait till you have multiple opponents." Vadette spun on her heel and headed for the mess hall. If her nose was anything to go by, it was roast lamb tonight.

Unspeakable Hamish had better not have used all the mint jelly.

* * *

Vadette had just returned from a job tracking Lucius Malfoy through the Department of Mysteries, which had been thoroughly unpleasant. The man had absolutely awful taste in cologne, and the entire time Vadette was sure she would pass out from the overwhelming scent of magnolias.

To make matters worse, it was always a struggle and a half to avoid the Researchers who lurked in the Hall of Prophecy and Chamber of Cosmology. Field agents had a good laugh about the fact that the Wizarding World thought Unspeakables were the doddering old Researchers who smelled of moldy books and knew archaic trivia. They had an even better laugh about the fact that the Researchers didn’t realize the mysterious magic they spent their lives pursuing went toward the field agents.

Still, those Researchers were very protective of their books, and one of them had fired off an ancient dancing-shoe jinx that almost made it through the shield charm on Vadette’s cloak. Her reaction – which was to dance for about two seconds on some firecracker paper before firing off a nasty burn hex – alerted Malfoy. She decided a tactical retreat was best for the time being.

Still trying to banish the scent of Lucius Malfoy’s flowers, Vadette rounded the corner to the PT gym and was promptly assaulted by the stench of sweating trainees.

"Come on, Bloom, give it to him good!" That was Unspeakable Oliver, who had yet to learn to be impartial while training the younger agents.

Vadette leaned against the wall and went still, letting her senses sculpt an image of the action. She could hear voices - a good dozen who were cheering and yelling and were only there to watch. Two people scuffled in the middle of the room, feet slapping against the old mats. They panted, short of breath - they'd been at this exercise for a while.

"Come on, Bloom, you can do it!"

There was a grunt of pain, like someone had the breath knocked out of him. Diggory. Of course.

"Take him down, lass! Show his pretty face what for!"

Vadette winced at the "pretty" comment. Cedric wasn't oblivious to the way he looked, but that didn't mean he wasn't occasionally sensitive about it. Very sensitive, if the sound of him hitting the floor face-first meant anything.

Oliver blew his whistle.

"All right, match is done. Good work, Bloom. Diggory, you had that same opening several times earlier; you should have taken it before Bloom got in a body strike," he said.

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

Vadette heard some of the other trainees snicker. They probably thought Cedric was too pretty and air-headed to realize he had been insulted. They didn't realize that Cedric was internalizing the criticism and that he probably wouldn't make the same mistake next time. They should have seen him take down Ezekiel last week.

Oliver gave the trainees one last pep talk before he set them free.

Vadette waited in the shadows for Cedric to come upon her before she pounced. He had a wand at her throat and a hex on his tongue before he realized who she was. Vadette waited, smiling. After a moment, Cedric relaxed and stepped back.

" _Fox_ , are you _mad?_ " he hissed.

"Your reflexes are even better - if one can have better reflexes than _the best Seeker Hufflepuff House has ever seen_." Vadette allowed her smile to widen.

Cedric groaned, and Vadette could practically hear him blush. "You haven't been listening to all that rot Bloom's been spouting too, have you?"

"You have good reflexes is all. I suppose it was serendipitous that you chose a hobby to hone them." Vadette stepped away from the wall. "Don't you have tracking and stealth to get to?"

Cedric cursed under his breath, and Vadette let her laughter follow his fading footsteps down the hall.

He would be a remarkable agent.

* * *

"Most other ambitious trainees are sound asleep in their bunks, hoping to earn a little more beauty rest before Oliver triggers the alarm clock charm." Vadette didn't lift her hand from the worn ivory keys.

"Most other ambitious agents aren't hiding in the cramped library, trying to play instruments they've never seen." Cedric's voice was wistful and distracted.

"I don't have to see it to be able to play," Vadette said, even though it was true. She couldn't.

"What am I doing here, Vadette? Really. Apart from the fact that I can survive Unforgivables - and no one even knows how - why am I here?"

That sound meant Cedric was carding a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture that Vadette had warned him would send him balding before his time. She was quite sure that had earned her a half-hearted glare at best.

"You're here because you can do something amazing, and Control thinks that skill should be put toward the greater good." Vadette wondered why she was repeating that swill.

"The greater good," Cedric murmured.

Vadette heard parchment rustle, and then the scratch of a quill. A clink of glass as Cedric set the quill in the inkwell.

"What are you writing?"

"One of those letters to Harry that I'll never be allowed to send."

The honesty in his voice was surprising. Vadette turned her head toward him, raised her eyebrows.

"Oh?"

None of the others talked about their former lives except to offer up the age of tragedy and perhaps a note of former occupation to add the bittersweet touch. It was by sheer chance that Vadette knew Bloom had two children. Other than that, she didn't know anything about her comrades-in-arms that she wasn't willing to share herself. She supposed she had been lucky, to have died so young and then been raised as this new person, ready for the ranks of the Unpseakables once she was of age. She didn’t have an entire lifetime to forget, not like Ezekiel, who sometimes whispered his wife's name when he and Vadette had shared a foxhole. Cedric was just the opposite; he had an entire lifetime ahead of him, making the short life he'd already lived impossible to leave behind. Unspeakables like Bloom and Oliver had a hard time forgetting. Cedric was only making it harder for himself.

"I write him letters all the time. I know I can't send them, but at least I can pretend that he can hear me, that he knows I'm still here." Cedric sighed. "I can’t stand that he thinks I'm dead."

"As do your parents, teachers, former dormmates, and others." Vadette had not spoken of Harry to Cedric since the night she'd fetched him, and she was curious about Cedric's love for the Boy Who Lived. Vadette had been raised with legends about Harry Potter enough to understand that he hadn't performed his miracle in time to save her parents.

"After the war - what then? Will I be allowed to see him?"

Unspeakable was for life. The dead were eternally silent, and Unspeakables were the walking dead. No one escaped that. But Cedric had heard it all before.

Vadette said nothing, just rested her chin in her hand.

"I listened whenever Harry told me that he was frustrated. The way he said it - it was as if he was some chosen child upon whom fate decided to heap all its curses. He was the Boy Who Lived, he faced down the Dark Lord twice in school and was a parselmouth to boot, and then his name came out of the Goblet…I didn't understand why it bothered him, and maybe didn't believe him like I should have. I mean, who wouldn't want eternal glory? But I held him and kissed his troubles away. I loved him and wanted him to be happy, and if he needed to vent for a while, well, that's what a boyfriend is for, isn't it?"

Parchment rustling.

Another scratch of the quill.

Clink of glass.

More ink.

Scratch, scratch.

What did Cedric write to Harry, anyway?

"And now I think, in some selfish, self-centered way, I've come to understand. Whatever this thing is that I can do, I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it, but I have it, and now I must use it for the greater good, even though I'm only a boy."

Cedric laughed. The sound wasn't pleasant.

"I've finally admitted that to myself. I was grown-up enough to join the tournament, grown-up enough to fall in love. But I'm not nearly grown-up enough to call myself an Unspeakable and fight a faceless enemy."

Vadette continued to listen, waiting for the moment to come.

"I love Harry, more than I love anything in the world, more than my own life, clichéd though it may sound. But it's not about dying, is it? It's about living. If going out there day after day and being tossed around by the other trainees means that, someday down the road, Harry will face Voldemort and walk away victorious, then that's what I have to do, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'm still just a boy." The quill scratching resumed in earnest.

Vadette tested a couple of the keys on the piano. Then she abandoned the melody she could never recreate and reached out with one hand. "The letter - give it to me. I can cast that charm."

"Why won't you teach it to me?"

"Access restriction. Only field agents of certain levels receive clearance to cast it. Control would know before it even left your lips."

Folded parchment landed on her open palm.

"Thank you, Vadette."

"You won't say that later."


	8. Of Letters and Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione notices something is wrong with one of her best friends, and Harry thinks things he shouldn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whee! first post in June! Also, uber special thanks to my beta, [](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile)[rotaryphones](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/), who has once again come around with a quick return time on this chapter.

Hermione noticed that Harry was tense. He'd been irritable and distracted all day. Ron told her that Harry had had nightmares all last night that kept up the entire dorm room. Dean and Seamus were understandably irritable in return, and Harry's snappishness and dark mood had earned him a wide berth.

Hermione kept an eye on him in class; he was up to something. Three times during charms, she caught him reading a note instead of paying attention to Professor Flitwick's lecture. As it seemed that Ron was not inclined to do so, Hermione would have to talk to Harry again.

She caught him outside the Gryffindor dorms on the way to the Great Hall for supper. Ron had been moaning about hunger pains halfway through their last class, and he'd dashed ahead with Seamus and Dean to get first pick of the food.

Hermione was a great believer in tact. "We need to have a chat about the next Defense Association meeting."

Harry jumped. His green eyes flashed, and Hermione saw him stuff a scrap of parchment into his robes. "Are you _mad?_ " he hissed.

Hermione clasped her hands innocently behind her back and continued walking, head held high. "Not as mad as you. Don't make it so obvious that we're chatting about something for which Umbridge would have us killed. It's not unusual for friends to converse on the way to supper. Is the meeting still on for this evening?"

"Yeah." Harry carded a hand through his hair, mussing it further. "Do your thing with the galleons, I guess."

Hermione nodded. "Of course." She could send the message right after supper. Umbridge would surely notice if a score of students suddenly started patting their pockets down in the middle of the Great Hall.

Hermione walked beside Harry in silence, considering her next words, but Harry beat her to it. "What do you want?"

For half a second, Hermione considered prevaricating and playing innocent, but that wasn't what Harry needed. "Is everything all right? You seem - distracted."

"I'm spectacular." Harry's voice was heavy with sarcasm. He reached up and rubbed his scar. "I just haven't been sleeping is all."

"Have the others been giving you a hard time?" Hermione searched his face.

Harry paused, and Hermione stopped beside him. Several Slytherins shoved past them, grumbling about the blockage in traffic. Harry avoided her gaze. He was fidgeting even worse, and his hair looked messier than ever.

"No, it's not them, it's just --"

"Just?" Hermione prompted.

Indecision and anxiety warred in Harry's eyes. He caught Hermione by the wrist and began walking toward the Great Hall again.

"You remember that parchment I brought you at the end of last year?"

Hermione did, vividly. She wondered who had sent Harry a letter via Testator Charm, because best as she could tell, Harry hadn't inherited anything. She nodded, and Harry continued speaking, voice low and urgent.

"I got another piece today. Found it this morning on my pillow. None of the other lads put it there. I checked with Dobby and the house elves, and no one put any of them up to it either."

Hermione frowned. "Well, a house elf wouldn't have told you if its master had ordered him or her not to, you know."

"Dobby would have told me, though," Harry said. "I wanted you to check it for that same spell."

"The Testator Charm."

Harry nodded. "I - I want to know when it was sent. I want to know who sent it, because --" Frustration crossed his face, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Something wrenched in Hermione's chest. "What's wrong, Harry?"

Someone called Harry's name, and he lifted his head. He waved, though the motion was brief and his smile was tense.

"I'll tell you - later."

And he pushed past her and into the Great Hall.

Hermione stared after him, confused. What was on that first parchment, spelled so only Harry could see, that made him so emotional? And what was on the second?

* * *

Hermione caught Harry before the DA meeting. He was pacing the length of the Room of Requirement and shuffling through several sheets of parchment.

"Is that what you wanted me to look at?" she asked.

Harry jumped. "Hermione! Bloody hell, I thought you were Filch."

She tossed her head. "I like to think I'm not _quite_ so foul."

Harry's eyes were bloodshot behind his glasses, as if he were very, very tired. Or as if he'd been crying. Hermione had only seen him cry once before, over Cedric Diggory's lifeless body.

"Sorry." Harry smiled weakly. "It's just - a list of charms and stuff. To teach. I was wondering what to teach next."

Hermione peered over his shoulder at the parchment. It was covered with an extensive list of jinxes, hexes, and battle-useful charms, some of which Hermione was fully aware weren't taught until sixth year. The handwriting was unfamiliar, neat cursive written by a sure hand.

"That's a really great resource, Harry," she said, face lighting up. "Where did you get this?"

Harry's face went pale, and he moved to shove the parchment back into his robes, but then he stopped.

Hermione studied his face. He looked absolutely awful. Had he been sleeping at all?

Harry scrubbed a hand over his face, looking resigned to some awful fate. "Actually, this is part of what I wanted to talk to you about."

Hermione nodded. "Of course, Harry. You can tell me anything."

Harry nodded, opened his mouth, and promptly closed it. He looked absolutely petrified.

Immediately, Hermione began running through possible answers to the mystery of the Testator-charmed parchment. It was related to the spell index Harry had been using to help teach the DA. Perhaps they were from the same person? Hermione studied the handwriting again.

Perhaps they were letters from Harry's mother? She'd been brilliant on all accounts. Maybe she'd left some of her school notes to Harry. Or maybe - maybe these were her notes from Auror training that she'd used in the fight against You-Know-Who. If she'd been sending them to Harry via Testator Charm, well, it was understandable that Harry was emotional.

"Look." Harry yanked a piece of parchment out of his robes and unfolded it, motions jerky with anger. He shoved it at her.

Hermione accepted it cautiously. Its edges were ragged and its creases were worn, as if it had been unfolded and refolded many times, reread. Except it was blank.

"Harry." Hermione showed him the blank parchment.

He sucked in a breath that was ragged, half a sob. "It's charmed so only I can see it. What - what if --" He reached out and gripped the top corner.

Hermione watched, amazed, as words curled across the page in that same neat cursive as on Harry's spell index. Harry’s mum was an excellent witch to have cast this charm.

Then Hermione began to read the words, and her breath caught in her throat.

It was a love letter.

Hermione looked at Harry, but his face was averted, and his jaw was tight, as if he were fighting the urge to speak. Or cry. Hermione read the letter slowly, absorbing the words.

 

Dear Harry,

I hope this letter finds you well. I cannot describe the melancholy and shadows that fill my days, but I do my best to get by - I am a Hufflepuff, after all. The world is a dark place, and sometimes I feel I linger at the ends of the earth, where the living dance with the dead. You are so beautifully alive to me, Harry. Knowing that you're somewhere out there, gazing up at the sky, sun golden on your face as you smile - it's what keeps me going. I wish I could be there at your side, but circumstances have forced us apart for a time. No worries - we'll be back together when it's over. I hope you don't miss me too much, even though I miss you something awful and my friend teases me for it. She’d say hello, but she prefers her anonymity so you won't hex her for giving me a hard time. I know you'd do anything to protect me. I'll do my best to watch over you.  
Always yours,  
Cedric

 

"Harry, this is --"

"When was it sent?"

Hermione blinked at his sharp tone. She must have looked hurt, for Harry caught her expression and closed his eyes, wincing.

"I'm sorry, just - when was it sent?"

Hermione cast a few charms she'd picked up in Arithmancy. "It has a Testator Charm on it, just like the last parchment." Had the last piece of parchment been a letter like this one? Why would Cedric Diggory send love letters to Harry?

Hermione glanced at the spell index, forgotten on a small side table that had conveniently appeared. That must have been from Cedric as well.

After a few more spells, Hermione relinquished the parchment and stepped back. Her hand was shaking. "This parchment was spelled about a week ago, this morning. There are no preservation charms on it." Hermione stared at the parchment, confused. "Harry, why would someone be sending you letters from Cedric Diggory after his death?"

"Because he was in love with me." The words were utterly bleak.

Hermione brought a hand to her mouth. She couldn't begin to imagine the pain he must feel. "No, Harry, don't make yourself feel even more guilty. You didn't kill Cedric, and if he was in love with you that doesn't make it worse --"

"I was in love with him too!"

Harry whirled around. His face was pale and drawn, and his eyes were manically bright. His hands were curled into fists at his side, and Hermione was afraid he was going to snap his own wand.

Harry was gay? When had that happened? But that didn't matter right now. What mattered was getting Harry to understand that their love didn't make him any guiltier, though the true guilt Harry had been carrying all this time was unthinkable.

"Harry, don't --"

"Don't what? Blame myself? When we were standing by the cup, he insisted I take it, that things would still be all right between us if I won. When I suggested we both take it, he --" Harry tore off his glasses and dragged his wrist across his eyes -- "he kissed me and laughed, said he was amazed that I was always such a noble Gryffindor. And then he _died_."

Hermione's heart broke, and she swept Harry into a tight embrace, burying her face in his chest. He tensed for a moment, and she went to pull away, but then he hugged back, held her just as tightly, so hard she could barely breathe. She felt him bury his face in her hair, struggling not to sob.

Hermione wanted to sob. She wanted to cry for her best friend who had been imagining, all these months, that he'd killed the boy he loved.

Harry jerked back abruptly and turned away. Hermione let him, watching carefully to ensure he didn't do anything foolish. His shoulders heaved as he struggled for control, and when he turned to face her again, he wore that mask of indifference that he'd been wearing since the day after the Third Task.

"Someone's been sending me these letters," he said. "Someone who knew about us, who knew he wrote letters. _I_ never even knew he wrote letters. But someone's found out, and I need to know who."

Hermione edged toward him cautiously, resuming her usual mien of know-it-all busybody. It was probably best at a moment like this. "Do you have any ideas?"

"The only ones who knew besides me and Cedric were Neville and Luna."

"Neville?" Hermione echoed.

Harry nodded. He laughed, and the sound was a little bit broken. "He, er, caught me and Cedric one night, snogging in the corridors. Promised not to tell."

"Neville wouldn't break a promise like that," Hermione said.

"Luna wouldn't either," Harry said firmly.

Hermione nodded. Luna lived near Ron and the Diggorys. Maybe she'd known Cedric growing up. It made some sense, she supposed. Cedric had always been kind, and if he'd been kind to Luna, it was understandable that he would have earned her loyalty in return.

"This is the part that doesn't make sense." Harry read from the letter. "'I hope you don't miss me too much, even though I miss you something awful and my friend teases me for it. She'd say hello, but she prefers her anonymity so you won't hex her for giving me a hard time.'"

Hermione frowned. "Why doesn't that make sense?"

"Cedric never told his friends that he and I were together. If he had told them, he would have told me." Harry's eyes were alight with feverish intensity.

Hermione didn't want to upset Harry, to tell him that his trust in his boyfriend - or was it lover? - was unfounded, but it did sound as though Cedric had told his friends.

"I can't figure out when this letter was written." Harry began pacing. "You told me that the last letter was spelled to arrive after the last day of school. I checked on the charm in the library, and Testator Charms are used to send letters at a certain time - or in the event of the testator's death. So Cedric died, and the letter came to me. That makes sense. You say this letter was only spelled a week ago, so someone living must have sent it." He paused and turned to Hermione. "Right?"

Something akin to horror curled heavy and cold in Hermione's gut. No. He couldn't possibly think it.

"Harry, I'm sorry, but Cedric is _dead_."

"Then why does this letter sound as if he were alive?" Harry's voice was angry and desperate. "You said yourself it was charmed and sent a week ago. That means that wherever Cedric is, he's still alive, and he's told his new friends about us."

Hermione wanted to cry all over again. "No, Harry, _no_. I said the letter was _charmed_ a week ago, not that it was _written_ a week ago. It could have been written months ago and maybe someone found it."

"Months ago, Cedric didn't have friends who knew about us."

 _Us._ Harry was already talking as though they were still together.

Hermione shook her head. "Harry, I think you're reading too much into this. There are also handwriting duplication charms --"

"You think I hadn't thought of that? I _know_ Cedric's handwriting, Hermione, and I know the way he wrote."

"Forgery, Harry. It's entirely possible."

Harry slumped back against the small table.

Cedric's old spell indices rustled, the sound soft, like a half-forgotten memory.  
Harry looked down, and an inexplicably fond, utterly sorrowful expression crossed his face as he traced over one of the words.

He lifted his head. "I know Cedric's dead, but I want, more than anything, for him to be alive. And in this letter - whoever wrote it - it sounds like Cedric is alive. Maybe whoever wrote it doesn't want to hurt me. Maybe he - or she - wants to help me. And that's not so bad, is it?"

"It's not." Hermione reached out and put her arms around Harry in a gentle, comforting hug. She could only think of one person who might know about Harry and Cedric, who would send Harry letters to cheer him up. However, she didn't think the Headmaster would be so misguided about how the letters would affect Harry. And she didn't want to believe that Dumbledore could be so cruel.

"He's dead, Hermione," Harry whispered.

The agony in that admission made it hard for her to breathe.

"No one comes back from the Killing Curse. I know that." Harry sounded tired and defeated. "I just wish he were still out there, somewhere, really watching over me."

Hermione knew that no one came back from the Killing Curse, not usually. But she had seen Harry's scar, and she knew Voldemort had survived a rebounding Killing Curse, and she briefly wondered if there was something else about Cedric Diggory that no one else knew.

Harry pulled back from the hug and reached out to straighten his teaching notes once more. Hermione gazed at Cedric's writing and wished those letters really were from him.

What she would have given, to have someone love her so much.


	9. Of The Living and The Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Unspeakables defend the Department of Mysteries from a Death Eater invasion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile)[rotaryphones](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/), my beta.

Unspeakable Diggory was an unbelievable sight to behold.

Victoria Bloom watched in awe as he slipped through the rows and rows of glass star models, the dark folds of his cloak barely whispering in the shadows. Even though field agents all wore the same glamour on the battlefield, Victoria knew which one Diggory was - after all, the agents kept their voices. Victoria had heard just enough from Fox's whispered conversation with Diggory before entering the room that she could tell his voice from hers, and possibly Ezekiel's as well.

Missions in the Department of Mysteries itself were few and far between, and they mostly involved protecting vital research and artifacts from destruction and thievery. The pretty blonde girl who hovered beside the protected target - a platinum model of Ganymede - was completely oblivious to the Death Eater who loomed behind her, wand poised to cast.

And then the Death Eater dropped silently, like a sack of potatoes. A flash of white hands and Diggory caught the body before it hit the floor. All the little blonde girl heard was the whispering of robes as Diggory dragged the body back into the shadows.

Victoria fired off a binding curse, and the Death Eater who was tussling with another field agent toppled over. There was an explosion of glass as he hit the shelf. Stars shattered. The other two students – a redheaded boy and girl, possibly brother and sister - began firing off a rapid succession of hexes and jinxes in the direction of the noise. They caught another Death Eater who had been attempting to rescue the comrade Victoria had felled, but the hex only grazed him and he recovered quickly, slashing his wand wordlessly through the air. The redheaded girl cried out and reeled back. Victoria heard the snap of bone and saw the girl's ankle bend in an unnatural angle. The redheaded boy caught her with one hand and fired a hex with another, but he was too late. Diggory was already there, throwing the man to the ground and stomping on his wand hand, effectively breaking it. Diggory followed up with a wordless silencing charm and a binding charm, and then he dragged the Death Eater down another row of stars.

Two Death Eaters in five minutes. Victoria hadn't really believed that Diggory had won his first duel with Ezekiel, but he was proving fearless.

Fox – Victoria knew it was her by the captain's badge on her cloak – popped up beside the model of Ganymede the Unspeakables had been assigned to protect. She cast a disillusionment charm on herself before the blonde girl noticed her, and Victoria shifted her attention to the shadows once more, seeking out Death Eaters - or Diggory.

She eyed the ruined row of glass stars. Their squadron would get it from Control for letting those get damaged, but Ganymede was unharmed, and that's what mattered most.

The redheaded boy helped his sister toward the door that led to the Chamber of Doors. He caught the blonde girl by the arm as he marched past and dragged her toward the door as well. Fox had ordered her squadron not to follow. Other Unspeakables had the other rooms under control.

Movement from the shadows caught Victoria's attention from the corner of her eye, but the blonde girl was faster. She whipped out her wand and said, voice clear and eerily calm, " _Reducto._ "

There was a cry and a thump of a body, and the blonde girl turned around.

"Come on," she said to the other two. "We have to help Harry, don't we?" She pulled open the door and vanished through it, and the other two followed her.

Just as the door began to slip closed, a figure dashed from the shadows - an Unspeakable. Victoria frowned, confused, and readied her wand.

Fox beat her to it with a swift, " _Colloportus!_ "

The Unspeakable beat his fist on the locked door, one hand wrenching at the knob. "I have to get through - he's on the other side - with Death Eaters --"

"Stand down, Diggory." Fox slid out of the shadows, tall and imposing. Victoria was glad for the battle-standard glamour, because seeing Fox's face always sent chills down her spine, just a bit.

Diggory had his wand out and was fumbling for a countercharm. Fox caught his wrist, leaned in and hissed something that caused Diggory to slump against the door.

It took Victoria a moment to realize he was unconscious. She stepped up and reached out to help support Diggory's weight. A moment later another bland-faced young man moved to help, Ezekiel beneath the glamour according to his badge.

He called over his shoulder. "The rest of you dispose of the Death Eaters for the Aurors' convenience, catalogue the damage, and then clean up the mess."

"We're taking you back to the Catacombs," Fox said to Diggory's unconscious form.  
The battle glamours dissolved as soon as all four of them crossed the Catacomb wards. Ezekiel carried Diggory to a holding cell and dumped him, unceremoniously, on a cot.

The two captains stood over Diggory's inert form in silence.

Ezekiel broke it first. "Is he bloody _insane?_ "

Had Victoria been of equal rank, she might have had the courage to say the same thing, because Diggory had been a madman back there, attempting to show his face to someone living – someone who would know him.

"It's been suggested," Fox said. "Diggory does have a – condition. From his previous life."

"He's lucky you stopped him," Ezekiel said. "He knows what the punishment is, doesn't he?"

"I told him about the Veil." Fox's tone was grim. "Perhaps a practical demonstration might serve as a stronger warning."

"Control's not going to like this." Ezekiel shook his head and turned away. He noticed Victoria and paused. He glanced back at Fox, but she was still standing over her lieutenant and wearing a horrifyingly blank expression.

"You have to tell them," Fox said.

Ezekiel nodded and turned to Victoria. "Watch him." His words were clearly an order.

Victoria stepped out of the cell and assumed guard duty. Behind her, she could hear Fox reviving Diggory.

"What the bloody hell were you thinking, Cedric?" Harsh words uttered with exasperation. She sounded tired but understanding.

"Vadette, let me go! I have to go to him, to protect him, to --" Diggory was desperate.

"Aurors are handling it."

"No - I have to -- "

"You broke rank today. Control will crack down on you, restrict your field action for a long time."

"I don't care. I couldn't just _leave_ him." Diggory's voice was choked, as if he were forcing back great emotion. Victoria wished she could disillusion herself to give them a semblance of privacy.

"You're dead, Cedric," Fox said softly. "You couldn't go to him. You have a duty now, a duty to the Unspeakables, and he's not part of that."

Victoria heard a deep, shuddering breath, and then Diggory's voice, unsteady but not wavering. "And I won't see him after that duty is done, will I?"

"Our duty doesn't end. You _know_ that," Fox said.

" _I love him._ Did you really expect me to leave him to the Death Eaters?"

Victoria's breath caught in her chest.

_I love him._

Cedric was in love with someone, with one of the students who had been at the Ministry battle. The pain and frustration in his voice was almost palpable.

Then Victoria heard the words in her mind again.

I love _him._

Bloody hell. Diggory was bent? It defied reason. Victoria had been a proud member of Hufflepuff house and hoped that her children would follow her there once they got their letters. She had kept an eye on her former house after she graduated, and she had been fiercely glad when Diggory – one of her very own Badgers – was made Champion for the Triwizard Tournament. She'd been gutted when Harry Potter was also made Champion, but all her attention was on Diggory. He was beautiful, talented, intelligent, and purportedly nice.

And straight.

Wasn't he? His treasure during the Second Task had been a girl – a Ravenclaw, a fellow seeker. Victoria remembered the picture from the paper – a pretty girl, no less. She'd been Diggory's date to the Yule Ball. Victoria had stared at the picture from the Ball – furtively torn from the Prophet while Fox and Hamish squabbled over the mint jelly at supper – for days on end after it was printed, admiring what a lovely couple Diggory and the girl made.

But she'd heard what she'd heard, and Diggory was in love with someone from his past life, a boy, one who had been in the Department of Mysteries fighting off Death Eaters.

How could that be?

Victoria puzzled it over in her mind. It made some sense - Diggory had been a student when he'd died, so it was entirely reasonable that the one he loved was still a student. Was it the redheaded boy? No - Diggory would have done something stupid earlier. It must have been one of the other boys fighting in another of the rooms. Victoria wondered who he was, that Diggory had risked Execution. If Victoria wasn’t on guard, she could be in the mess hall gossiping with the other field agents. They probably knew who else had been fighting, students and Death Eaters alike.

Whoever the boy was, Diggory loved him fiercely – more than life itself, more than the second chance at life he had been given.

"He had friends with him, skilled friends. You saw them fight," Fox said.

Cedric choked out a laugh that might have been a sob, a sharp contrast to Fox's gentle, soothing voice.

"Yes, I saw them. I didn't know Luna had it in her. But if something happened to him, I'd --" Diggory sucked in another sharp, pained breath. Had he been wounded as well? Victoria resisted the urge to turn around and look. As long as she had a prisoner behind the bars at her back, she was on guard until Control sent along its verdict.

"You're already dead, Cedric," Fox said.

Victoria hated that line. Unspeakables bandied it about freely, usually as a joke, but Victoria could never forget how true it was.

"I wouldn't kill myself." Diggory's voice was strong and sharp. "Bloody hell, Vadette, I'm in love, not pathetically obsessed."

"Well, you're acting like your pathetically obsessed," Fox said tartly. "The Diggory I know is levelheaded and intelligent, cunning as a Slytherin, brilliant as a Ravenclaw, courageous as a Gryffindor, and loyal as a Hufflepuff. What I saw out there today was plain stupidity, house prejudices aside."

"I _love_ him, Vadette."

"And you're being bloody stupid about it. If you love him, help him live. Work hard, get out there and risk your neck so that when this war is over - and make no mistake, this is war - he'll have a world to live in, a future ahead of him. Even if you can't be part of his future, you'll know he has a chance at a happy one."

Diggory's voice was muffled, as if he'd buried his face in his hands. "What the hell have I done?"

"You acted like a boy, Diggory, because you still are a boy. You had your mistake - now learn from it, and when this war is over, emerge a man." Fox's voice was inexplicably fond.

Diggory gave a startled, half-choked laugh. "You make me sound like a butterfly, not a wizard."

Fox's tone turned light and teasing. "Well, you _are_ very pretty."

"Funny, Vadette. Very funny." Diggory sighed.

Victoria darted a glance over her shoulder and caught sight of something previously unthinkable: Fox was giving Diggory a hug. Fox was one of the most dangerous Unspeakables of all time - everyone knew she was cold and ruthless, an Unspeakable raised from childhood after the Dark Lord had sewn and cursed her eyes shut, dooming her to eternal darkness. As far as any of the other agents could tell, Fox didn't even know what a hug was.

But she had an arm around Diggory's shoulders and was stroking his hair gently while he rested his head against hers.

"I'm in deep trouble, aren't I?" Diggory asked.

Fox nodded. "Yes. Yes, you are."

Ezekiel reappeared, looking grim. He nodded at Victoria, and she saluted before stepping away from the bars. Ezekiel unlocked the gate and stepped into the cell. Victoria turned to watch. Ezekiel cast a muffling charm, then delivered the verdict to Cedric. Fox's mouth was pressed into a thin line. For her to look grim, the answer from Control must have been something awful.

But Diggory kept his chin up, and he nodded solemnly. Victoria marveled at the determination in his gaze, and she knew that he would be the noble Hufflepuff she'd always suspected he was. He would take his punishment without complaint and carry on, because Fox was right – if he loved his mystery boy so much, he would keep on fighting.

Victoria turned away then, because it hurt to see him so in love. She had been in love once herself, but no more, because the dead could not love. Now she could only watch Diggory and dream.


	10. Of Hoping and Knowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry _knows_ Cedric is alive. Hermione knows he _isn't_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile)[rotaryphones](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/), my awesome beta, and to everyone else who has read along for the crazy ride!

When Hermione woke up in the infirmary, there was a piece of folded parchment tucked beside her pillow. She recognized the handwriting immediately. How could she see the words without Harry touching it? She read the letter quickly, wondering what it was, if it was to her or to Harry.

 

...the midst of battle I will think of you, but I beg of you, do not distract yourself with thoughts of me. I will fight to keep you alive, and you will fight to keep our world alive, brave soldier that you are, and in the end everyone will have their happily ever after in the ruins of Voldemort's senseless war. We are all soldiers in the same tired ranks, but I know you have the strength to live on. I pray that you will, for you are my better half, and the world should not be deprived of your brilliance, your spirit, and your beautiful green eyes. Don't make yourself suffer for those who suffered under Voldemort's misdirected wrath or the savageness of his Death Eaters - never, ever blame yourself for the tragic deaths of your friends and their families.

I'll be waiting for you at the other end.  
Love always,

There was no signature, just a hasty ink streak as if the writer hadn't had time to sign his - or her? - name. And it was only the last page of the letter. She was quite sure it wasn't for her. After all, it was signed "love always." Why had Harry left it for her? She turned it over, and there she saw it, scrawled in muggle pencil, Harry's familiar scrawl.

He's alive.

Hermione's heart leapt into her throat. No. Harry couldn't think that. He had just lost Sirius the night before, and he was probably mad with grief. She tried to get out of bed, winced, and immediately sank back. Drat. How was she going to get to him? The doors at the other end of the infirmary opened and Madame Pomfrey backed into the room with a tray of medicine. Hermione shoved the parchment under her pillow and lay down, feigning sleep, but panic swirled through her. She had to talk to Harry.

* * *

Hermione stepped into the train compartment, Crookshanks in her arms. She nodded at Neville, who asked Ron if he'd like to go in search of the Trolley Witch. Luna floated after them murmuring about nargles, and for once Hermione was grateful for her oddness.

She'd cornered both of them separately at the start of the Express journey, showing them the letter and demanding to know whether either of them had perpetrated this emotional havoc upon Harry. Luna had been startlingly lucid about the problem, looking concerned and worried, while Neville had merely been grimly confused. Hermione was sure that neither of them were the culprits, and she couldn't begin to guess who else it would be.

"Harry?" she began tentatively.

He looked up from where he was holding something, a piece of broken mirror.

Hermione bit her lip. She wasn't sure she could have this conversation with him. "I have the letter you left for me."

"Cedric is alive." He said it simply, bluntly.

"You can't know that."

Harry just shrugged. "There are things in that letter, like about S–" he stumbled over the name "– Sirius that Cedric would never have written about when he was 'alive.' He couldn't have written about them in Fourth Year. But he's alive out there _now_ , and he's still looking out for me, just as he promised."

Hermione didn't know whether to cry or scream. "Harry, you can't possibly believe that. You saw his _body_."

Harry met her gaze, green eyes eerily calm. "I _know_ he's alive, Hermione. Those letters are from him. Not some impostor, not some imitator - from _Cedric._ I can feel it."

Hermione opened her mouth to scream at him, that he was driving himself mad, that he had to mourn for Sirius now, but her voice had deserted her.

Then Harry smiled, a sad, small smile. "But don't worry. I won't bother you with it anymore. The war is here, and we all have to fight."

The words slammed Hermione in the gut. That was worse than protestations of love, declarations of pain. Harry was just _accepting_ that Cedric was alive, warping his reality to fit his delusions. He really was going mad. She had to tell someone. All she could do was choke out his name.

"I'll study hard next year so I can be ready," Harry continued in that calm, almost serene voice, and Hermione felt tears prick at her eyes.

Then there were voices outside the door: Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies. Harry was on his feet, wand in hand, before Hermione could get in a word edgewise. There was hollering in the corridor; Ron and Neville had arrived. Harry thrust open the compartment door, green eyes blazing, and suddenly he was the Harry whom Hermione remembered, all bristling schoolyard enmity and Gryffindor stubbornness.

The broken mirror lay on Harry's abandoned seat. Hermione tucked it into his bag before drawing her wand and summoning some prefect authority. She stood shoulder to shoulder with her best friend, and when he looked like that, fierce like a lion, she could almost believe that he had never seen death, never had his heart broken.

Once Malfoy and his cronies were turned to slugs and stuck in the luggage rack, Hermione followed Harry back to their original compartment.

"Harry," she said.

He shook his head. "Don't worry, Hermione. It'll be all right. Some way, somehow, I'll make sure we make it to the other end, and that there's something on the other end for us to have."

He stepped into the compartment, but Hermione remained in the corridor.

She should tell someone about the letters. What if they were like Riddle's old diary? Even if they weren't, it was unhealthy for Harry to be hanging on like this - downright dangerous, especially in the wake of Sirius' death. Through the compartment window Hermione could see Harry re-reading one of the other old letters, a soft smile on his face, and she wondered if she really could take that away from him.

She glanced over her shoulder to where Ron and Neville were recounting their momentary battle glory against Malfoy, and she wondered if Ron would ever think to wait for her at The Other End, whenever it came. Then she looked at Harry again. If he had someone - even a memory of someone - who made him _want_ to make it to the other end, she wouldn't take that away from him.


	11. Of Duty and Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cedric sent a letter he shouldn't have. Vadette is an Unspeakable and a best friend.

Cedric shrugged off his shielded cloak and hung it on the peg just inside the door of his stark dorm room. Now that he was a full-fledged field agent, he no longer had to live in the trainee barracks, and he was grateful for the privacy. The other trainees had taken perverse delight in teasing him - mostly about his good looks - by doing petty things like nicking his clothes and putting hair gel in his toothpaste. He reached down and unlaced his boots with one hand, eager to toe them off. Then he saw Vadette standing beside his desk.

She held a piece of parchment in one hand, but she wasn't looking at it; her face was turned to Cedric's bare wall. A low, neutral, almost mechanical voice spoke to her, and Cedric cast a glance around the room, looking for another person.

His heart dropped into his shoes when he heard the words.

_"...truth is, Harry, I'm still alive. I can never see you again - cannot touch you, hold you, kiss you. Because while my body still breathes and my magic still works my name has been erased from the annals of time, and I am no longer welcome in the land of the living. My comrades in arms are as dead as I, and the duty we hold lasts as long as our hearts beat. I don't tell you this to make you sad or make you miss me; I tell you this so you can venture on knowing that you did not cause my death and that I would never bear you ill will if you found another to love. I will love you always, and in -- "_

Vadette turned toward him. She cast a quiet charm, and the strange voice fell silent.

"Cedric, where's the other half of this letter?"

"It's gone," he said. "I sent it."

Vadette turned and set the parchment down on his desk. She remained with her back to him, and her voice was haunting and sepulchral, the voice Cedric heard that first night he'd met her. Fear began to whisper through his veins.

"Control has restricted you from field duty for three months after your ridiculous stunt in the Department of Mysteries," Vadette said. She didn't look at him, and her voice was faint, so Cedric had to strain to hear it. "If they find out that you made contact with someone Living, they'll send you straight through the veil, no questions asked."

Cedric's heart began to pound. "The half I sent mentions nothing of my being alive - I didn't even have a chance to sign my name before some buffoon down in the library spilled his tea." The library was where he'd been stationed as his punishment.

"Cedric, there are reasons we have the rules we have. They're not just to protect us from being discovered." Vadette turned, pulling up the cowl of her cloak so Cedric couldn't see her face. The fear in his blood began to devolve into something deeper and darker. "The last Unspeakable who couldn't let go of the Living World went mad. Broke. Couldn't handle her duties anymore, tried to contact her mother. Lost her magic in her insanity, and Control had to put her down. She was like a rabid dog near the end."

Cedric flinched at the clinical dispassion of Vadette's voice.

"If you keep this nonsense up, you'll crack too. I'd hate to have to be the one who sends you through the Veil."

How could he explain? He sighed and moved to sit down on his bed. He patted the space beside him. Ordinarily, Vadette would come sit next to him, but today she remained standing beside the desk, hovering like a black-robed specter.

"It's not what you think," he said. "It - it was a goodbye letter. I know I'll never see him again. I don't even know if I'll come out of this war alive." He dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated, trying to find the right words. "I just - wanted to give him some hope. And to give myself some closure. It's the last letter I'll send."

Vadette tilted her head to the side slightly. "You don't sound like a man who has accepted his fate."

Cedric glared at her. "I have, all right? I have. It hasn't been easy. You - you were raised for this. Sure, you love your parents, and you miss them. I miss my parents so much sometimes I can hardly speak. I turn to tell my father how well I did in stealth tracking practice, or I smell supper and want to ask my mother to add an extra dash of pepper, but they're not there." He lifted a hand and dragged the back of his wrist across his eyes, the motion jerky with anger. "But you can't possibly begin to understand what it means to lose the boy you love, not to lose him permanently in death but to be exiled from his presence for as long as you live, knowing that he's there and that he's hurt without you and that one day he'll move on and forget about you, and you'll be left to remember alone."

"Indeed, I was raised for this," Vadette said, her voice still disturbingly soft. "I think, however, you suffer less than you think for having loved at all."

Cedric shook his head. "Vadette, no, you don't _understand._ "

"I don't think I do," she agreed, and that was too easy. Vadette was an unwavering Unspeakable. For her to give in like that was disconcerting - it meant she was planning something else. Cedric knew her that well, at the very least.

"However, I do understand what it means to be an Unspeakable, what it takes to be a field agent who survives more than four missions. And what it takes is forgetting who you once were and embracing what you've become."

"I can't just _forget._ I'm doing my best to cope. Isn't that enough?" Cedric cried.

Vadette flicked her wand, and the door swung shut. "No, it's not, because you won't cope. Being an Unspeakable isn't a _job_ , Cedric. It's an entire existence. And it's an existence where you were never in love and where you will most likely never love again. If you don't accept that now, you might as well step through the Veil of your own accord, because that'll be far worse than what a Death Eater will do to you if he catches you in the state you're in now."

"Yes, I sent the letter to Harry, all right? I said I wouldn't send anymore. What are you doing in my room, anyway, going through my things?" Cedric narrowed his eyes at her, uncaring that she couldn't see his expression. She could hear it in his voice.

"Ezekiel said Control registered non-permissive magic from you," she said. "I offered to come and have a chat with you instead of letting Control have their way and marching you straight to your Execution."

"And what will you tell them?" Cedric's heart thumped oddly in his chest, and he remembered this feeling: sick fear, colder and harsher than before. One wrong word from Vadette, and his life was forfeit. Did she believe in the Unspeakables that much, that she would let them kill him because he was in love? He'd heard what happened to Sirius Black at the Veil. Was he willing to face that for Harry?

Vadette shook her head, and Cedric glimpsed the barest hints of a smile. "Nothing. Because that's the last letter you're sending, and Harry will never know you're alive. Am I correct?" Her words, though soft, were clearly a command.

"Yes."

"Good." Vadette stepped toward him. She reached out and stroked his hair, and he had to swallow hard and close his eyes. The gesture was full of tenderness and inexplicable pain. "Because if Harry ever does find out otherwise, I'll send you beyond the Veil myself."

Cedric felt his blood run cold, but he couldn't deny the sadness in his best friend's voice. "I wouldn't want it to be anyone else."

When Cedric opened his eyes, Vadette was wearing that smile again, the one with which she had said farewell to the Unspeakable she'd left in Cedric's place. She pressed a kiss to his hair, and he shivered. "I hope it's no one at all." And she glided out of the room.

Cedric watched her go and thought if she ever raised her wand against him, he wouldn't fight back. Vadette was his best friend, and she would do what was right for him.


	12. Of Pretty Faces and Pillocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione thinks Harry fancies someone new. Harry sets her straight. As it were.

"Are you in love with Malfoy?"

Harry choked on his pumpkin juice and almost dropped his flask.

Hermione reached out and clapped him on the back while he coughed and spluttered, staring at her with wide eyes all the while. Once he could breathe again, he straightened up.

" _What_ the bloody hell are you on?" he hissed. Then he grabbed her arm and dragged her into an empty classroom. "How could you ask that? Just because I happen to - to fancy boys occasionally doesn't mean I get hot over _every_ pretty face to grace the corridors of Hogwarts."

Hermione tugged herself free. "Well," she began, and lifted her chin defiantly, "you just admitted you think Malfoy has a pretty face."

Harry buried his face in his hands and made a sound like a muffled scream of frustration. Trust her to pick up on the least important bit. "I'm not _stupid_ , Hermione. He might have a pretty face, but his dad tried to kill Ginny, tried to kill _me_ twice, and he broke my nose on the train. If I wanted a boyfriend I'd go for someone nice, like --"

"Like Cedric."

Even now, the name made his heart miss a beat. He could feel Hermione staring at him with the concerned, hopeful look she wore whenever Ron wasn't looking, the look that went with her lecture on the Hogwarts Express at the end of Fifth Year. She hadn't mentioned his name since then.

"I was going to say, 'like whoever has been writing me those letters,' but yeah, like Cedric." Harry laughed softly. "Honestly, did you think after I dated a guy like Cedric that I'd do a nut and then go after some pillock like Malfoy?"

Hermione floundered a bit. "They do say opposites attract," she said.

Harry shrugged and leaned back against one of the desks. He gazed out the dusty windowpanes on the far side of the room, and Hermione faded into the background as he lost himself in memory.

Images, moments, words. They flooded his mind and struggled for dominance as his heart reminded him why he loved the boy he'd loved.

"Cedric and I _were_ opposites. He was handsome. I'm bloody scruffy." He reached up and ruffled his already-messy hair to emphasize his point. "He was intelligent and thoughtful, and I - I go gallivanting into the Department of Mysteries without stopping to see if there's a trap."

His voice caught slightly at that, and Hermione reached out, tentatively placed her hand over his.

He smiled faintly.

"Cedric was popular, and I - I was the Heir of Slytherin, the unwanted Champion. He was my opposite in pretty much every way that mattered to anyone else."

Harry watched a thousand emotions play across Hermione's face as she struggled to form a response. He could only imagine what was going through her head – equal parts encouraging and embarrassing, no doubt. Good on you, Harry, you've accepted your boyfriend's dead and gone? Cheers to closure, now go out and shag someone new?

"You have too much going on in that bright brain of yours sometimes," he said. "But, to answer your initial question directly, no, I am _not_ in love with _Malfoy._ "

"You seem a bit - obsessed with him," Hermione said, rallying her defense half-heartedly. "You talk about him all the time, and you follow him, and --"

"And I think he's _up to something,_ " Harry said. "If I were secretly dating him, I'd never talk about him, never talk to him, and _you_ would never know a thing."

At that, Hermione recoiled slightly.

Harry sensed the wound he'd inadvertently given. "Hermione, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It's just - how would I have explained?"

"I don't know. Sat me down and said, 'Hey Hermione, I have a boyfriend just like yours - he's a Triwizard Champion and a seeker.'" She met his gaze frankly. "Doesn't sound so hard, does it?"

"You know it wasn't nearly that simple," Harry said.

"I know. It's just - we're best friends. You could have _told_ us."

"Told Ron, who was furious and thought I was a glory-seeking, stuck-up prig? He hated Cedric as it was." Harry smiled. "It was good, though, being with Cedric." Then he laughed. "Who do you think Ron would have been angrier about - you and Viktor or me and Cedric?"

Hermione paused. "Well...you and Cedric, I think."

Harry stared at her a moment, surprise and skepticism warring for dominance in his mind, then shrugged. "If you say so." He turned back to gaze out the window.

Hermione was silent for another long stretch, probably puzzling over the right thing to say. "Harry...are you...doing all right this year?"

Harry felt a sly smile curve his lips. "I think am. Doing a sight better than you at potions, at any rate."

Anger sparked in the air, radiating outward from Hermione with a thrum almost as tangible as magic, and Harry looked away, waiting for her to rein herself in. She had her reservations about the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry had his faith. She couldn’t change what he felt any more than he could change what she felt. After the stunt with the _Felix Felicis,_ Harry thought she ought to be a bit more trusting, but she was Hermione, and if she didn't know the answer backwards and forwards and in her sleep, she didn't trust it.

"Harry --" she began.

Harry beat her to it. "I know what you're really asking."

Hermione blinked. "Oh?"

Harry continued gazing out the window. "I've accepted that Cedric's dead. I know that someone out there knew how he wrote, knew what he would write, and whoever that stranger is, man or woman, they care about me. I suppose, if I ever meet them, I should thank them." Then he closed his eyes and tilted his head back with a sigh.

Hermione, alarmed at the sound, started forward. "Are you all right?"

"I just miss him sometimes, is all." Harry sighed again and raked a hand through his hair. "I miss - holding him. Kissing him. Talking to him. I miss the nights when we'd huddle together in an empty classroom and watch the stars. Do you miss Viktor?"

"It - it wasn't like that with him." Hermione reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Harry. I can't begin to understand what you went through, what you're still going through."

He shrugged, still not looking at her. "'S all right. We have other things to worry about, don't we? Like what Malfoy's up to."

Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "Right. Say..." She hopped up onto the desk beside him. "What would you do if you met the person who was sending you those letters?"

He paused. Anger and betrayal were his initial reactions, but he had come to learn from Cedric that what he felt in a single instant didn't necessarily reflect how he really felt about things. He'd felt, for a single instant, utter hatred for the boy who had claimed to be his friend and then got on his back after the Second Task. But underneath it all, he’d just felt hurt that the boy he cared about didn't care about him. Now that he could understand his own reactions and emotions better, he could give her a better answer.

After all her concern, she deserved one.

"I think..." Harry turned and met her gaze. He was beyond betrayal at this point. Whatever that stranger had gone through to get him those letters, every word had been filled with genuine emotion. "I think I'd thank him." He was quite sure it was a him, no matter who Hermione thought it might be. Sometimes, when Harry re-read the letter, hidden behind the drapes of his bed, he wondered if this strange amanuensis loved him as Cedric had.

"That's good." Hermione grinned at him. Then she tugged on the sleeve of his robe. "Come on. Let's go get food."

"Be careful - you'll sound like Ron," Harry said.

Hermione pushed open the door and headed into the corridor. "Would that I could get as tall as him for eating what he does."

Harry smiled down at her and was surprised to properly notice, for the first time, that he had to smile _down_ at her rather than right at her, chin up to meet her gaze. "Come on. Maybe if you're nice I'll tell you all about how much I _fancy Malfoy_ later."

Hermione slapped his arm. "Come off it! That's an awful thing to say."

Harry laughed. "I know. I couldn't resist."

Together they headed for the Great Hall. Harry would have to ask Dobby to refill his flask for tonight if he was going to attempt to keep watch on Malfoy. Hermione's laughter drew him out of his plotting, and he smiled again. She wasn't so worried about him anymore, it would seem. He would always love Cedric, always miss Cedric, and perhaps, somewhere in the deepest of his desires, imagine that Cedric was still alive but unable to see him due to unspeakably complicated circumstances. Harry had faced, however, the fact that Cedric was dead. Now all he could do was hold onto his letters and learn how to win this war.


	13. Of Death Eaters and Dead Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cedric is given his first big field mission.

_My work is Unthinkable and my name is Unspeakable._

Cedric had never been able to match Vadette's haunting, sepulchral announcement. Unspeakable Ezekiel (tragic at twenty-seven, by the hand of Evan Rosier) recited the line in a rather dry tone, amused at the archaic ceremony of it all.

Cedric thought it was a wonder that no one had caught on to the code phrase, given how all the Unspeakables used it. In addition to the code phrase there were small, innocuous objects that the field agents used as further signals for their contacts, something provided by Control that only the contact would recognize. Cedric wondered who his contact was that he had to use such a bizarre token.

It was a black satin ribbon with a charmed metal pendant that sensed magic so Vadette would know when someone was casting a spell at her. The thing - it was shaped like a very girly-looking rose - was supposed to send a small warm feeling through the wearer as a warning. Unfortunately for Cedric, the talisman didn't like him. So rather than a mere rise in temperature whenever a spell was cast, a red stain dripped off the petals and down the front of his shirt. Cedric looked, perpetually, as if he'd had his throat slit. Vadette had insisted that his contact would recognize the choker, and that it, coupled with the code phrase, would identify him so he could begin his mission.

Then Vadette had flung a scrap of parchment at him, orders from Control. Cedric had had half a second to read _Forest of Dean_ before the parchment's portkey charm triggered and dragged him out of the catacombs.

So now Cedric was camping in a muggle tent - they were easier to shrink - and living off of tinned sardines, digestives, and hot cocoa. He was armed with standard Unspeakable field gear that he had initially been excited to use on an extended mission. He had a bracelet made of black metal engraved with the word "unspeakable" in shimmering letters; it provided his personal glamour for undercover work, and this was the first time he would be able to use it. He also had a cloak with a shield charm on it, a ring that was a portkey, and so much charmed jewelry that he was two shawls and an incense stick away from being Trelawney.

Cedric fully expected to dig himself a fox-hole and hide in the shadows, picking off Death Eaters one by one. Instead he was sprawled out on a lumpy old sleeping bag, casting casual security charms around his perimeter. He supposed he was luckier than Vadette, who was tromping through the wastelands of Siberia tracking down a lead on Dolohov.

The tingle of magic spread across Cedric's skin, and he opened his eyes. Then he looked down at the talisman Vadette had given him. He hated the stupid choker.

The thought prompted the rose to drip a few more splashes of red. Cedric cast a hasty imperturbable charm on his jersey and raised himself to a crouch, ready to spring. When he poked his head out of the tent, the charm throbbed again. Someone else was here, then.

Cedric's grip on his wand tightened, and he voiced a disillusionment charm under his breath as he rose up and stole through the forest. Then he saw it: a silvery doe, delicate and graceful, standing amidst the trees.

A moment later he saw Harry emerge from behind some sort of concealment charm, wand drawn, staring at the doe with rapt attention.

Harry.

Cedric felt his heart stop, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. Harry was here. In the forest with him. Had Vadette arranged this with Control somehow? No, she was too dedicated an Unspeakable for that – Cedric couldn't let Harry see him. Not that Harry would recognize him with his glamour in full force.

For two and a half years, Cedric had worked tirelessly alongside Vadette and the other Unspeakables, fending off Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries and doing favors for the Order in the shadows, but he hadn't been able to see Harry, not once.

Harry followed the patronus doggedly through the trees. Cedric cast a muffling charm on his feet and started after him. Even if Harry wasn't his mission, Cedric wasn't about to let him wander through the forest alone.

Did Harry know who'd sent the doe? Cedric knew that Harry's patronus was a stag. Someone who knew Harry, was close to Harry, had to have known that a doe would mean something to him.

What the bloody hell was he thinking, running through the trees after an unknown patronus without telling Ron or Hermione? Even if Harry knew the patronus, there was no way he could know that the sender wasn't under Imperius, or a traitor. Cedric remembered Peter Pettigrew.

The doe moved deliberately through the maze of trees, and Harry followed, enthralled. Cedric sent out a subtle spell, testing the air for charms cast on Harry, but there were none. He cursed silently and continued to follow. He suspected that this wasn't going to end well.

The frozen pond was hardly a good sign. Cedric hovered behind the line of trees, gaze darting all around, searching for the caster of the patronus. It had stopped, so its mission was probably complete.

Cedric's wasn't complete. No, it was just starting, now that Harry thought it would be a grand idea to --

Cedric swallowed hard.

Harry was stripping off his clothing in the middle of winter, when it was freezing, and --

 _Sweet Merlin_ , he looked _good._

Cedric tightened his grip on his wand, but the protective spells that had hovered on the tip of his tongue vanished. Harry had grown up since the last time Cedric saw him. He was taller, his shoulders broader, and there was a sinuous slide of muscle beneath skin that made Cedric's mouth water. His pulse doubled, and he had the incredible urge to throw his cloak on the ground, pin Harry on it, and trace the line of muscle along Harry's abdomen, possibly using his tongue.

What would it hurt if Cedric reached out and touched Harry? If he gathered the boy into his arms and kissed him breathless?

When Harry jumped into the pond, Cedric bit down on his lip so hard it bled.

He started forward, ready with a summoning charm, when another tingle of magic spread across his skin. Ron Weasley appeared - had he apparated in? Cedric hadn't heard the distinctive snap of time and space. Where had he come from? Ron plunged into the pond and bodily hauled Harry out, Harry who was clutching a ruby-encrusted sword.

The sword of Gryffindor. Harry had told Cedric about it once.

Cedric couldn't hear what they were saying, but best he could tell, they were all right. Cedric noticed the locket Harry was wearing then, and the choker at his throat tightened with the backlash of dark magic. A harried discussion between the two boys led to Harry taking off the locket. Ron readied the sword, almost as if it were a beater's bat, and then Harry did it: opened the locket.

A tidal wave of black magic exploded from it. Cedric didn't even have time to cry out. He raised his wand to cast a shielding charm, to save Harry and Ron from the magic, but then Ron was lifting the sword.

Cedric didn't even manage half a syllable of the shield charm before he felt a horrific pressure, followed by a release of pressure at his throat.

The talisman - it must have broken under the backlash of dark magic. Cedric looked down, and the talisman was at his feet, black satin ribbon unraveling from the force of the severing.

Cedric put a hand to his throat. It was still dripping with red.

His world went spotty and white, and he toppled over.

It might have been an hour, a day, a year, or only a few seconds that Cedric stared up into  
the wintry sky before a wand entered his field of vision, followed by a familiar hand.

Then a familiar face. Professor Snape. Headmaster Snape now.

Cedric held still. He could play dead with the best of them, after all. Was it just his imagination, or did Snape actually look worried? Cedric's world went hazy all over again, and he almost drifted off to sleep, lulled by the velvet-smooth baritone of Snape's voice as he sang.

Snape sang?

Cedric decided that he was delirious, probably from the pain, because his throat was _burning_ , and he blamed it on Vadette's evil little talisman. The pain faded, slowly, as Snape sang, tracing a complicated pattern through the air with his hand, and Cedric realized that Snape was _healing_ him.

That meant one of two things - that Snape was making sure he was healthy for Death Eater interrogation, or Snape thought _he_ was a Death Eater. Belatedly, Cedric remembered the Unspeakable bracelet he was wearing so Snape wouldn't recognize him.

Apparently the spell Snape had used made it through the shield on Cedric's cloak - or the shield charm needed to be renewed. At any rate, Cedric just had to lie still a little longer, wait to be fully healed, and then strike. He had to get back to watch Harry, but he was sure the Unspeakables would be pleased if he could stun Snape, bind him, and have someone come collect him.

The pain in Cedric's neck faded, and Snape sat back. He cast a suspicious glance at his surroundings. Cedric began to ease his hand outward, searching for his wand. A frown crossed Snape's face, and he reached out, feeling along the ground. Cedric halted his search immediately. Snape picked something up, cradling it in his palm.

Vadette's talisman.

His gaze darkened, and he lifted his wand, aiming it at Cedric.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Cedric swallowed hard. Then he said, "My work is Unthinkable and my name is Unspeakable." It came out as a pathetic croak, as if Cedric had a cold.

Snape's gaze narrowed. "Why didn't you say so earlier, you bloody fool? I could have killed you!"

"Killed me?" Cedric echoed. He must have sounded stupid, for Snape's expression darkened. Before Cedric could react, Snape reached out and closed a hand over Cedric's throat.

"I slit your throat, boy! You almost died." Snape shook him, fiercely, and Cedric realized he was still dazed, head feeling light.

Probably from blood loss. The pain at his throat - it must have been some sort of cutting hex. He stared at Snape like a wounded animal, unable to form words.

"You're daft, boy." Snape's jaw tightened, and he looked angry. "What the hell were they thinking, sending the likes of you?"

Cedric was still attempting to process the fact that Snape was his contact. Snape was a Death Eater, the Dark Lord's right-hand man, the man who murdered Dumbledore. What the bloody hell was going on? How could Control have sent him to Snape? Unless Cedric was here to kill him.

He closed his eyes and shivered, remembering that sickly green light.

No, he couldn't kill anyone.

A hand jolted his shoulder roughly. "What's the matter with you? We're in the middle of a war. You almost died. Does that shock you? You don't have time to be shocked. You must come with me - _now._ "

Cedric's eyes fluttered open, and he said, "I've died before. That wasn't what it feels like."

Snape's beetle-black eyes flashed. "They've sent me an inmate from Bedlam, then? Perhaps Bellatrix will enjoy you." He grabbed Cedric's shoulder and yanked him to his feet, frog-marching him through the trees and interrogating him every step of the way.

"What is your name, boy?"

"Unspeakable."

"Unspeakable _what?_ "

"Diggory. Tragic at seventeen," Cedric said automatically.

Snape spun him around and pinned him against a tree, wand at his throat.

"Cedric Diggory is dead. Peter Pettigrew killed him. Who the _hell_ are you?"

Cedric had never heard a teacher curse before. He stared into Snape's eyes, daring the man to read his mind. "Severus Snape murdered Albus Dumbledore, is a Death Eater, and would have murdered Harry Potter and the blood traitor Ronald Weasley tonight. Who the hell are _you?_ "

Snape's expression went utterly cold. "I did not _murder_ Albus Dumbledore - I put to death a man who was already dying, _at his request_. And I didn't kill Harry bloody Potter and that sodding Weasley spawn because, even now, I am still working _at that man's request._ "

"Some request," Cedric said softly.

Snape jabbed him sharply with the wand, a warning. "I'll ask again. What is your name?"

"My name is Unspeakable and that's all you have to know," Cedric said firmly. "Whatever my colleagues may call me is of no consequence to you." _Fool!_ his mind railed at him. _You're arguing with a fully trained Death Eater!_

"I expect to know the name of the fool who shall send me to my grave as soon as he commits error." Snape's gaze bored into Cedric.

"Control sent me to you to do your bidding," Cedric said after a long silence. He didn't back down from Snape's gaze. "But how will I know you're really Severus Snape?"

"Unless you know Legilimency and can break past my Occlumency, you'll never know." Snape held up the bloody rose pendant with his other hand. "You'll have to trust that whoever gave you this sent you to the right person."

Cedric had spent two years trusting Vadette with his life. He was terrified to think that, during all this time, he'd been wrong.

"What is it you're asking me to do for you?" Cedric asked.

"You shall retain your glamour and stand before the Dark Lord as one of his servants," Snape said. "Then you will report back to the owner of this." He lifted the charm once, turning it so it sparkled beneath the winter moon, before tucking it away in his robes. "A spy in the Dark Lord's ranks. That'll be you."

A spy.

The notion was frightening. It was one thing to linger in the shadows and pick off Death Eaters with quiet spells, and another entirely to live as one of them.

Cedric set his jaw determinedly. If this was what Control wanted him to do, he could do it. It was better than lingering in the Ministry keeping an eye on Umbridge, who he wanted to throttle with his bare hands.

"A spy."

"Don't make me repeat myself."

Cedric closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The pressure of the wand at his throat didn't waver an iota. He opened his eyes again and looked at Snape.

"Do you really want to know who I am? I would think, as a spy, that you would rather not know my name and face in the likelihood that I'm caught and exposed."

"I have shown you my face," Snape said.

Cedric nodded. "All right. But I'm changing my glamour after this."

"It would be better for both of us."

"The black bracelet on my left wrist - tap it with your wand, say _Hufflepuff._ "

Snape arched an eyebrow at "Hufflepuff," but he obeyed. He made sure to lock an arm across Cedric's throat first, ready to suffocate him out of existence if the bracelet was a trap.

The dissolution of a glamour charm always left Cedric feeling scrubbed raw, but he was able to ignore the sensation in favor of enjoying Snape's thoroughly poleaxed expression. He was quite sure no one else had witnessed such an expression, nor would anyone see it again.

" _Diggory._ "

"I told you my name earlier."

"You're _dead._ "

"Legally, yes. Actually, no." Cedric had to resist the sudden, inexplicable urge to smile.

"How...?"

"Only the Unspeakables know," Cedric said.

Snape's gaze darkened. "No one survives the Killing Curse."

"Tell that to Harry Potter."

"Indeed."

"May I reactivate the glamour, now?" Cedric asked.

Snape stepped back, though he did not stow his wand, and allowed Cedric to straighten up.

Cedric reached down and murmured the password. He would have to change his password and the glamour, but he'd have to do that out of Snape's sight.

" _Hufflepuff_ isn't a very inventive password," Snape said.

"Did you think I was a Hufflepuff?" Cedric asked.

They walked side by side through the trees toward what must have been Snape's apparation point. Snape said nothing; Cedric knew he'd won a round.

They stood in a small clearing. Snape reached into his robes, then thrust a bundle of black cloth at Cedric. Atop the bundle, a white mask gleamed.

"These are yours. They were given to you by Uriah Rookwood, who is dead. There have been rumors among the ranks of a young half-blood from a very prominent line who has been plying his skill in charms in some of the less pleasant side-streets in Knockturn." Snape's voice was even and clipped, as if he were reciting the information from memory.

Cedric had no doubt as to who spread the rumors.

"Your family name is Prince, and you wish to aid the Dark Lord. The rest of the lie is your own," Snape said.

Cedric nodded.

"I will spend the next twelve hours teaching you what Uriah Rookwood would have taught a fellow servant of the Dark Lord," Snape said. "After that, you are rather on your own unless I should need you. I shall contact you. Do not send word to me."

Cedric nodded again.

Snape looked as though he were waiting.

Cedric blinked.

"Put on the bloody robes, Diggory! I remembered you being much brighter at school."

"I suppose dying once or twice does something to one's brain," Cedric joked, and belatedly remembered he was talking to _Snape_.

"Or twice?"

Cedric pulled on the robes.

Snape caught him by the wrist. "Let's go."


	14. Of Firsts and Lasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has one hour left.

One hour. Sixty minutes, less with each breath he took. That was how long he had to live. Dumbledore's pensieve had said it all: Harry had to die. And he would do it. The prophecy said this was what he had to do. Something in him had hoped, distantly, that the prophecy was wrong, that it really was Neville, but he knew the truth now. It was his destiny, it was everything he'd prepared for, coming closer and closer to death each year.

This time he would succeed in defeating Voldemort, and it would cost his life.

Panic and gut-wrenching terror began to crowd in his head. He staggered, caught himself against the wall. He tried to have as quiet a panic attack as possible. Beneath one of the Deathly Hallows no one could see him, but they would hear him, and he doubted that all of Voldemort's Death Eaters had retreated as ordered.

Harry straightened up, struggling to regain some semblance of composure. He scanned the corridor, and after a moment he recognized it. The charms corridor. He knew it inside and out – he'd learned to navigate it in shadows and darkness, in Cedric's arms.

There, the alcove between the two suits of armor. It was practically invisible to all passers-by.

Harry darted into it, letting the heavy velvet drapes fall shut behind him so no one would see him. Then he tugged off the invisibility cloak and took a deep breath.

Two seconds later, he felt magic spark behind him. He spun, drawing his wand. The stranger caught him by the shoulders, spun him back around, and clamped a hand over his eyes.

The stranger whispered in his ear, voice low, making him shudder.

"I'm not here to hurt you."

"Who are you?" Harry demanded. His mind buzzed with a thousand different ways to break free and curse, hex, run away.

"Someone who's already dead."

Harry set his jaw grimly. A defeated fighter for the so-called side of the Light, or perhaps a betrayer who knew his time was up. And then the stranger made a sound, soft, as if he were _inhaling._ Harry knew the gesture intimately, knew the sensation of a lover breathing in the scent of his beloved as if his beloved were the source of all light and life.

He wrenched himself away from the memory and _moved_ , spun the stranger into the wall, wand at the stranger's throat.

Beneath the edge of a Death Eater's mask.

Harry reached up and ripped it aside. "I should kill you where you stand."

The Death Eater was young, pale-featured with a too-large nose and inky-dark eyes, straight black hair. Something about the way he looked was oddly familiar.

The Death Eater met his gaze squarely. "As I said, I'm already dead."

Harry jabbed sharply with his wand. His mind spun. What should he do now? What should he say? This was proof – there were still Death Eaters roaming at large. He should send his patronus, warn members of the Order.

The Death Eater said, "I told you, I'm not here to hurt you."

Harry's brow furrowed. "You're young for a Death Eater." The stranger didn't look much older than Harry – two years at the most.

"Older than Draco Malfoy."

"But young enough to have been a student." Harry studied those dark eyes for a hint of the familiar, but found nothing. "I don't know your face." Then he shook himself out of his inane distraction. "I'm wasting time talking to you. I have - I have to go. I'll leave you for the aurors to find."

Something inexplicable crossed the Death Eater's face, and then he lunged. Harry jerked back automatically, but it was too late, he was caught, hands catching him at the waist and jerking him forward into –

Sweet Merlin, a kiss.

Harry went from high-strung to sensation-overload in a single instant, and he parted his lips, tasted the spice of another boy's mouth and the heat of lust on another boy's tongue. This was it, this was the end, and Harry could do it, get in one last kiss, one last _touch_ –

He jerked back abruptly. He'd just been kissed by a _Death Eater._

"Who the _hell_ do you –"

The other boy leaned down and brushed his lips against Harry's ear. "I promised we'd meet again."

Harry went still.

The Death Eater drew back slightly, keeping one hand tangled in the hair at the nape of Harry's neck, stroking absently. Harry wanted to curl back into the caress and close his eyes, pretend he was in Cedric's arms, but he knew this was someone else.

"It was you," Harry said quietly, "who's been sending the letters. How did you know?"

The Death Eater smiled faintly and moved to settle his mask over his features once more. Harry caught his wrist, tugged the mask away. It slipped from his fingers, and both of them let it clatter to the floor. Harry peered closer, and he could see it, the faintest magical waver of the Death Eater's face. A glamour.

"Who _are_ you?" he asked. This time his tone was gentle. Something in him was aching, ready to break. He reached up to touch the other boy's face. He would be able to sense the truth behind the glamour then.

The Death Eater shook his head and pulled back slightly. "No." He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Harry saw the internal struggle that crossed those unfamiliar features and wondered who else in this world could have loved him as Cedric had.

When the Death Eater spoke again, his voice was ragged. "You should go. You have things to do." He opened his eyes, and Harry thought, for one moment, that the boy's eyes weren’t black but very dark grey. Then the boy leaned down, rested his forehead against Harry's. "I promised I'd meet you on the other end." He began to steer Harry toward the opening in the curtain. "You have to go."

Harry shook his head and tugged free of the other boy's hold. He knew he had to go. He had less than an hour left before he had to go out there and face down that frighteningly mortal moment when he would die.

"Not yet," he said, and pressed the boy against the wall, caught his mouth for a kiss. The Death Eater moaned and brought his hands up once more, and Harry shivered at the touches – hesitant at the nape of his neck, possessive at the curve of his ribs. Harry pressed himself against the other boy, desperate for touch, for taste, anything to remind himself that he was still alive.

"Harry," the boy breathed, and Harry stole his next words with a long, slow kiss. He worked a hand between them, fingers fumbling at the clasps of the black Death Eater robes, and then his hands were on warm, human skin. Lips along his collarbone almost distracted him from his exploration of the play of muscle along chest and belly.

"I want to feel," Harry said, and he buried his face in the other boy's neck, inhaling the heady scent of lust and _male_.

"Feel what?" But the other boy's long fingers were deftly unclasping the front of Harry's robes.

" _You_ ," Harry said, and the first touch of the boy's hands on his skin drove the rest of his coherent thoughts into the wind.

"Good. Because I want to taste."

And then the boy was shrugging off his robes and spreading them across the floor, lowering Harry gently and casting a quick muffling charm. Harry lay there, propped up on his elbows, wary, and then the other boy was straddling his thighs. Harry had about half a second's warning before the boy lowered his head, and then everything was wet heat and sensation and _oh, Merlin_ –

Harry had one ounce of self-control left and threaded his fingers through the boy's hair, tugging. "Wait – I've never –"

The boy lifted his head, and his lips were swollen, red. Harry's heart missed several beats.

"I know what I'm doing," he said. He was breathing hard, and he was running one hand up the inside of Harry's thigh, the touch desperate and insistent and completely maddening.

"If you're –" Harry began.

The boy didn't answer, just ducked his head once more. A tongue on Harry's flesh robbed him of reason, and his world narrowed down to the heat pooled between his hips and the maddening rhythm of mouth and tongue.

 _I don't know what I'm doing_ , Harry realized, and he opened his mouth to apologize, to tell the other boy he didn't have to if he didn't want to, but then the boy swallowed and all Harry could do was moan.

All he knew was hot and wet and tight and stroking, and then the sensation stopped. Harry's eyes flew open, and the boy was grinning at him.

"You like that, then?"

The best Harry could manage was an incoherent nod, and the boy looked pleased.

"Good. I want you to feel good." The last words were said softly, almost tenderly. For a moment, Harry panicked, afraid that by allowing this he was doing something irreparable to the other boy, letting this boy fall in love with him in the minutes before he would die. But then that mouth was on him again and he could barely remember his own name.

Heat began to build in his blood, and suddenly it was all _more, more, more_ – more tongue and wet and tight and _swallowing._ Harry felt his hips begin to buck, realized he was probably pulling on the boy's hair, but the boy didn't care, just kept licking and sucking and how was he breathing? And --

Harry had to warn him, had to tell him, had to cry out, but the world went white. Then it reassembled itself in colored spots, and Harry had to learn how to breathe again.

The other boy was stretched out along Harry's side, one arm thrown across Harry's chest, face buried against his throat.

"I should – for you –" Harry began.

The boy shook his head. He was breathing hard. "No. You don't have to. I wanted to. I –" He pulled back and cleaned Harry up with a handkerchief, rebuttoned Harry's robes reverently.

Harry, still boneless from release, allowed himself to be pulled up into a sitting position, into a tight embrace that left him breathless once more.

Abruptly the other boy pulled back. An unreadable emotion – pain? anger? sadness? – flashed across his face, and he turned away to tug on his robes.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling small and vulnerable.

The other boy nodded, the motion terse. Then he turned back to Harry, and his black eyes were bleak. "You should go," he whispered.

Harry reached out to place a hand on the boy's shoulder, then pulled back, unsure.

"W-what's your name?"

The boy smiled faintly, sadly. "My name is unspeakable, and my work --" he picked up his Death Eater mask – "unthinkable."

Harry wanted to know, _had_ to know his name. "Please –"

The boy shook his head. He reached out and stroked Harry's hair, traced the line of Harry's brow and down the ridge of his nose, over his upper lip and lower lip, the touch feather-soft.

"Why did you send me all those letters?" Harry hated how small and scared he sounded.

The boy tugged him into another tight embrace, burying his face in Harry's hair. "Because I love you. I will remember you," he said, voice low and fierce. "When you go out there and do what you must, when you return triumphant, I will have known you and I will remember you. Not as a hero, but as a young man, one who loves and moves and who, by Merlin, kisses like Eros himself. Do you understand?"

Harry felt himself nodding, but he didn't know why. He wasn't coming back – there would be no triumphant return for him. "I –" He pulled back and struggled to find the right words to say to the last person who would see him alive, to a boy he didn't even know who loved him more than he could understand. "Thank you." What for, he wasn't sure. Probably for everything – the letters, the kisses, the sex – and for understanding him in his final hour.

The boy turned to Harry once more and kissed him, this time softly. "I'll be waiting for you on the other side," he said.

 _The other side of the Veil_ , Harry thought. He tried to smile. He could still taste the lingering kiss on his lips as he rose to his feet. The other boy handed him his wand, and then he covered his features with the Death Eater mask once more.

Harry summoned his cloak and pulled it on for the last time, vanishing from the other boy's sight. He stepped out of the alcove, barely rustling the velvet drapes. When he glanced over his shoulder, all he saw was a shadow suggestive of black robes.

Harry turned back to face the corridor.

He had less than an hour. He was ready.


	15. Of Death and Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron runs into a Death Eater.

Ron hurried down the corridor. He was sure Harry had come this way. He had to find Harry, to talk to him. His brother was dead, murdered by a Death Eater, murdered by all the stupidity that had gone on in this bloody war – Ron wasn't about to let Harry go and get murdered as well. Experience told him that Harry was about to do something stupid and brave, far more stupid than the time he'd gone and faced a dragon with nothing more than his wand and a summoning charm.

"Harry!" Ron called out. He was sure Harry had come this way. Harry had an uncanny knowledge of the castle, probably due to the cloak and map. His favorite place to be alone was the Charms corridor.

Ron rounded the corner and came to an abrupt halt.

A Death Eater stepped out of an alcove between two suits of armor. Ron acted first.

" _Diffindo!_ "

The Death Eater neatly sidestepped the jet of light and drew his wand. He traced a complicated pattern in the air, and Ron felt a thrum of magic fill the corridor.

Bloody hell - this one was powerful, casting wordlessly like that.

Ron cried out, a wordless sound of rage, and fired off another hex.

A simple flick of the wand, and the spell dissolved mid-air.

Ron stared at that white mask, and terror curled in his chest. He was fighting a _Death Eater_.

No matter. He'd fought against them - and won - when he was a mere Fifth Year. He wasn't afraid of some coward behind a mask. He began to cast spells, rapidly, one after another, gauging his opponent's response time. The Death Eater had sharp reflexes, deflecting and dodging spells smoothly.

About ten spells in, Ron realized that, no matter what he cast, the Death Eater never cast a thing in return. The best defense is a good offense. Ron knew that. So he began to cast fiercer, faster hexes and jinxes that the Death Eater had to work to avoid. There was no searching for Harry now. He had to take down this Death Eater instead. He could do it alone. And even if he couldn't, he could --

" _Levicorpus!_ "

The Death Eater was immediately yanked toward the ceiling by one ankle. The white mask fell away and clattered to the floor, revealing an oddly familiar face - pale, too-large nose, too-dark eyes.

The Death Eater recovered quickly and cast _finite incantatem._

Ron almost laughed when the boy - because it was a boy - landed on the floor in a heap. Then Ron was on him. He caught the boy by the shoulder and spun him over, flat on his back, and thrust his wand at the boy's temple.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you."

"Harry would be very, very unhappy if you did." A tired, resigned smile crossed the boy's face.

Ron's brow furrowed. "Who are you?"

"Also, you wouldn't be much better than a Death Eater, killing a downed and unarmed man, would you?"

Ron fisted a hand in the Death Eater's collar. " _Who are you?_ "

"Does it matter? I'm just a nameless Death Eater to you. Nameless and eventually faceless." Still he wore that smile. "You'll remember my face if you kill me, though." And then the smile slid away. "I'm already dead anyway."

"Damn right you are." For a moment, Ron’s hot-headedness overtook him. He’d gladly kill the Death Eater scum who’d murdered his brother. Ron took a deep breath, and he could hear the syllables in his mind. _Sectumsempra._ It wasn't an Unforgivable. He knew Aurors had used worse.

The hesitation was what undid him.

"You're not ruthless enough for murder, are you?"

Those coal-black eyes bored into Ron's, and he shivered. Those eyes were - odd. Wrong. They wavered, and for a moment, Ron could see that the Death Eater’s eyes were really grey.

Cedric Diggory had had grey eyes, hadn't he?

Remembering Harry mad with grief after seeing Cedric murdered in cold blood halted Ron's fiery rage in a single icy deluge. Maybe he wasn't ruthless enough for murder. That didn't mean he was letting this Death Eater go. The Order could use him for information.

Ron fired off _incarcerous_ followed by _expelliarmus._

The Death Eater glared at Ron, dark eyes furious, but his rope-bound body was immobile.

Ron stowed the Death Eater's wand in his robe, then levitated him into a nearby empty classroom.

Ron had learned an impressive shackle jinx from Kingsley, and the ropes around his prisoner dissolved for barely a moment before the boy was shackled firmly to the wall.  
He frowned at Ron, but he seemed oddly calm.

Too calm about this whole thing, really.

The boy tugged experimentally at the shackles. On one hand he wore a strange bracelet made of black metal. Letters glimmered in its surface, but Ron couldn't read them. Satisfied the chains were solid and strong, the Death Eater tipped his head back against the cool stone.

"Tell me You-Know-Who's plans," Ron said. He kept his voice loud and angry. After a moment, he jabbed the boy with his wand for good measure.

"You can't really think that someone as young as me is really in the Dark Lord's good graces enough to know his Very Important Plans for Harry Potter." The bastard actually sounded _amused._

"I know that ferret-face Malfoy let the Death Eaters into the castle last year. Age has nothing to do with war," Ron spat.

The other boy's gaze darkened, and he nodded. "You're right about that. Pardon me; I sacrificed profundity for light-hearted ease."

"What's your name, Death Eater?" Ron jabbed with his wand again.

"I thought we'd agreed earlier that it didn't matter what my name was, because you'd forget it unless you murdered me. And we've proven that you're incapable of murdering me." The boy regarded Ron with those too-dark eyes, and something in his expression was oddly familiar.

"We didn't agree on _anything._ "

The boy just looked at Ron, his expression blank. Ron had the faintest notion that, if he could really see what the other boy looked like, he would be laughing.

And then Ron wondered if the Death Eater was wearing a glamour. He could be anyone - Malfoy himself, for all that Ron knew.

He cast _finite incantatem._

Nothing happened, except now the boy was openly trying not to smile.

"Are you wearing a glamour?" Ron asked.

"Maybe. If I were, it wouldn't be _that_ easy to get rid of, would it?"

The boy was _taunting_ him.

Ron lifted his wand, ready with a cutting hex. His patience was wearing thin.

"Where are the other Death Eaters? You-Know-Who didn't recall them all, did he? What's going to happen to Harry?"

"Even if I knew --"

"You wouldn't tell me. I know." Ron could taste it on the tip of his tongue again. _Sectumsempra_. Somewhere non-lethal, a foot or a hand or maybe even the boy's wand hand.

"I don't think you're capable of torture either," the boy said. "The murder you had in your eyes was quick and painless. If you can't handle quick and painless, somehow I can't imagine you stomaching something drawn-out with screaming, Gryffindor though you may be."

Ron's head came up sharply. The boy knew what house he'd been in. That meant he was either a former student - and he certainly looked young enough - or he was someone who knew Ron personally.

His eyes narrowed. "Who _are_ you?"

"In a war, names don't matter." The boy met Ron's gaze firmly. "What matters is being out there and fighting for what you believe. Neither of us is doing that, and neither of us is doing any good."

"Fighting doesn't solve everything either," Ron said.

And the boy smiled, though this time the expression was wistful. "So Hermione finally rubbed off on you."

Ron's eyes blazed. "Don't you _dare_ speak her name!"

The boy's gaze turned thoughtful. "You love her," he said. His words were quiet, almost reverent.

"What does it matter to a Death Eater like you?"

"He always said she was in love with you. I never did find out if you grew out of your adolescent oblivion enough to love her back," the boy said, almost to himself.

He _did_ know Ron.

"Your name," Ron said, and made his words an order.

The boy looked startled. "Look, it doesn't matter who I am. What matters is Harry. If you love Harry, you'll let me go and give me my wand, and then you'll go out there and finish fighting."

"You have no right to say his name either, Death Eater."

"I'm not a Death Eater," the boy snapped, "I'm a --"

" _Blood traitor!_ "

A woman shrieked in the corridor.

Ron spun, wand raised and ready to fight.

"Tiberius Prince, we know you're in there. Come out and we'll make your death a little quicker," a man said.

Ron went pale. Bloody hell. More Death Eaters. He panicked for a couple of seconds, then got his head on straight. He had to get help, and fast. A flick of his wand, and a silvery Jack Russell Terrier was prancing about the Death Eater's feet.

"Get help," Ron said to it. "Go to the Aurors or whoever's with my mum and dad, all right?"

The terrier nodded and bounded through the wall.

"We know everything, Tiberius," the woman crooned. "We know all about how you were a boot-licking, sniveling traitor, half-blood filth like _Snape_. Related to him, aren't you? A Prince? Just like poor Eileen. Daft girl married a muggle. The Dark Lord will be merciful if you tell him what you know."

Ron darted a glance at his prisoner.

Tiberius wore a grim expression. Ron realized why the boy had looked so familiar - he did look like Snape. His nose wasn't as big, and his hair was short and neat instead of greasy, but he was definitely a relative.

And, apparently, a spy.

"Let me go," Tiberius said. "We can hold them off until someone answers your patronus."

Ron hesitated.

"You heard them." Tiberius' too-dark eyes were earnest.

"How do I know it's not a trick?"

"Did I hurt you when we were fighting?"

Ron shook his head.

"I'm not here to hurt you - I'm a spy. I was helping. I --"

"Who was your contact in the Order?"

Tiberius shook his head. "No, I was spying for someone else, someone Severus knew, but not for the Order."

Ron's gaze narrowed again. "Someone else _who?_ "

"We don't have time for this." Tiberius lifted one of his shackled wrists. "Come on."

"Maybe we'll leave you to Bellatrix," the woman outside the door continued. "You know she's an absolute _diva_ with the Cruciatus."

Ron studied Tiberius' face. "You know," he said, "your eyes aren't black. They're just really dark grey."

Tiberius blinked. "What?"

"At least, that's what the glamour looks like -- if you’re wearing one." Ron dispelled the shackles. "It makes sense - a spy with a glamour." After a moment's hesitation, he handed over the wand.

Tiberius cast silently toward the door, and Ron heard the surprised yelp that usually came as the result of _levicorpus._ Tiberius could cast it wordlessly. Maybe he had learned from Snape after all.

The door shattered beneath the force of _reducto_ , and Ron dove for cover behind a desk.

Three Death Eaters stood in the doorway, their eyes glinting menacingly beneath their masks.

"Come out, Tiberius." The one in the center was the woman. "Come out now and make your death slightly less painful."

Ron almost missed the ripple of stone along one wall that signified a disillusionment charm. Tiberius was actually _sneaking up_ on the enemy. Immediately, Ron tore his gaze away from Tiberius and focused on getting good aim on one of the other Death Eaters. He tried to breathe as quietly as possible, desperate not to let any of them know he was there. He aimed his wand between the legs of a pile of chairs where he could just make out who he thought was the female.

He knew he didn't have to cast loudly - he just had to put his will behind it.

So he did.

" _Diffindo._ "

He was rewarded with an angry shriek, and the scent of blood filled the air.

"Where is he?" the woman shrieked. "Get him! That bastard of a blood traitor is hiding like a coward!"

"Which way did it come from?" the other man asked.

And then there was a sickening crack of bone. Another scream.

Ron popped up from behind the desk and saw one of the Death Eaters slumped against the blackboard. He'd yanked off his mask and had one hand pressed to his nose. Blood streamed from between his fingers.

"Nose is broken," the other male Death Eater said. He took off his mask to squint at his comrade, then rolled his eyes. " _Epis_ \--"

There was another blur of movement, and the disillusionment charm slid off of Tiberius like water off a stone as he darted forward, seized the man's wrist, and broke it with a complicated twist of hands and elbows.

Ron gaped.

" _Cru_ \--"

Tiberius punched the woman in the mouth, and Ron heard another sound like teeth breaking against a mask. She gave a gurgled cry, and then Tiberius had her down on the ground, twisting her hand up behind her back.

"Blood traitor!" the first man wailed, and lifted his wand.

Tiberius planted his hands on the woman's back and twisted his torso, and then he was kicking the man in the face. Boot connected with skull. Ron winced. The man hit the wall with a sickening thud, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

The woman snarled some insult, the words incomprehensible through her broken teeth and bleeding, swollen lips.

Tiberius cast a _silencio_ on her and then lifted his head, as if noticing Ron's absence for the first time.

 _'We can hold them off,’_ Ron thought. _Didn't even need me, did you?_

"Weasley, come break their wands. I'll tie them up for the Aurors to handle," Tiberius said, and then let loose with a series of spells Ron had never heard of that resulted in the female Death Eater being swaddled with chains.

Ron crept out from behind the pile of chairs.

He snatched up the three fallen wands. For a moment he weighed them in his hands. He could almost feel the dark magic thrumming through them. He'd never broken someone else's wand before. It was almost sacrilege, to break another witch or wizard's wand. Not even criminals who went to Azkaban had their wands broken.

Tiberius finished binding the other two. As an afterthought, he cast a couple of sleeping charms on each of them. Once he was done, he turned to where Ron still stood, holding the wands.

"Best do it quickly," Tiberius said.

Ron cast a glance at him. There was something almost - gentle in his voice.

"It's a bit difficult to do more than two at a time, though."

Ron nodded. A moment later he understood, and he handed over one of the wands. Tiberius accepted it solemnly and then, quicker than Ron could see, broke the thing over his knee.

Ron stared down at the two wands in his hands. He took a deep breath, then did it. Snapped two wands over his knee and watched the splinters float to the floor, watched the mangled cores hang halfway out of the hollow wooden tubes like limp corpses.

Tiberius clapped a hand on Ron's shoulder.

"Thanks."

Ron shook his head and let the broken wands fall. "I didn't do anything. You did it all." He frowned. "I've never even seen an auror do something like that."

"Like what?" Tiberius knelt to make sure his captives were still secure.

"You know." Ron made a vague punching motion. "Mum always said that brawling like a muggle was - undignified."

Tiberius arched one eyebrow, and for one moment he looked like Snape, too much like Snape, as if the man, transformed into a teenager, were locked in an empty classroom with Ron.

"What makes you think I intended to be dignified?"

"Well," Ron began, then cut himself off. It was true - there was something brutal about breaking someone's nose with his bare hands, or kicking someone in the face. And he wasn't sure about the physics on that kick, going from crouch to flying kick in an instant. But in his brutality, Tiberius was...graceful.

Tiberius shook his head. "You should go."

Ron nodded and started for the door. Then he paused. "Do you know where Harry is?"

"No. And it doesn't matter. He knows what he has to do. You have another task set for you. Hermione is probably waiting."

Ron reached for the doorknob, then paused again. "Who _are_ you?"

Tiberius smiled. "My work is unthinkable and my name is --"

"Death Eater!"

"In there - with Weasley!"

The door flew open.

Ron leapt back just in time to avoid getting smashed in the face. Half a dozen aurors spilled into the classroom. One of them grabbed Ron and dragged him toward the door, toward safety. Another lifted his wand.

"Surrender, Death Eater!"

"Wait!" Ron cried. "No, he's a --"

And then a second auror lifted her wand. She tipped back the hood of her cloak, and Ron saw that her face was - wrong. Her plain brown eyes stared without seeing.

"What's your name, Death Eater?" the first auror asked.

Someone else in the huddle said, "Bloody hell. It's Tiberius Prince."

"We have orders to take all captured enemies to the pen in the Great Hall," another auror said.

"That's not Tiberius Prince," one of the aurors piped up. "Isn't he a lot...bigger?"

Tiberius smiled again, that same tired, resigned smile as before, and Ron knew something was horribly wrong.

The girl reached up, and Ron saw that she was unfastening a choker at her throat - a silver rose on a black ribbon. It was the sort of thing Ginny would've liked.

Tiberius's gaze fell on the choker, and something like understanding crossed his face. He lifted his head, drew himself up to his full height, and waited.

"It _is_ Tiberius Prince," the first auror insisted.

Tiberius shook his head. "Not anymore. Not in any way that matters."

"Then it shouldn't matter if Tiberius Prince dies, does it?" the girl auror asked.

Ron shivered. Something about her voice was terribly cold. Broken. As if she were in pain.

Tiberius smiled, gently this time, and said, "Dying is nothing to those who are already dead."

The other aurors shifted, aware of the strange current hanging in the air but unsure of what to do.

The girl auror set the rose-pendant choker down on a nearby desk, then cleared her throat to speak.

Serenity crossed Tiberius' face, and he flicked his wand. " _Sectumsemp_ –"

The girl's reply was equally calm.

" _Avada kedavra_."

Chaos erupted among the aurors.

Ron darted forward. He skidded and landed on his knees beside Tiberius's inert form. Those too-dark eyes stared up at the ceiling, lifeless.

Ron reached out to close Tiberius's eyes. His hand was shaking, but it was the only thing he could do for the boy who had saved him.

Hands on his shoulders wrenched him back, and he writhed, yelling.

The girl auror hauled Ron to his feet and began frog-marching him out of the room and down the corridor, back toward the Great Hall. Ron twisted in her grip, but then she jabbed a finger down and _under_ his collarbone, and he hissed in pain.

"Keep walking," she said.

"You murdered him."

"He was a Death Eater."

"No, he wasn't." Ron turned to look at her, and then he noticed the hand on his shoulder. Around the slender, delicate wrist, was a black metal bracelet.

Letters glimmered on its surface, but Ron couldn't read them.

His eyes widened. "You knew!" She must have been a spy just like Tiberius. She'd known he wasn't a real Death Eater, and she'd killed him anyway.

But then she shoved and he stumbled through the doors into the Great Hall, and she was gone.

Ten minutes later, he could only watch as aurors laid Tiberius Prince's dead body on the Slytherin table alongside the other fallen Death Eaters.

Ron knew Tiberius didn't deserve to be there, but he didn't know where the boy should go.


	16. Of Living and Surviving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has to figure out the difference between living and surviving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the eternal patience of my beta: [](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile)[rotaryphones](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/). And so this is the last chapter. Well, it was the last chapter until I went nuts and overhauled it and now it has been split into. Erm. Multiple chapters. So maybe think of it as the last chapter Part A.

Harry stood in the doorway of the Great Hall, surveying the aftermath of the battle. The Aurors had hustled him away from Voldemort's corpse as soon as Harry was lucid enough for it, and he'd spent the last half hour in a daze. He'd killed Voldemort. It was over. The war was done. And yet he felt – incomplete. Unsure. As if at any moment the corpse would spring back to life and he would have to finish off one more horcrux to make sure the deed was done.

If the way people were looking at him was any indication, however, the deed was well and truly done.

Voldemort was _dead._

All Harry wanted to do was sleep.

Despite the watery, grateful expressions everyone wore, no one had approached him, and he was glad for the respite. A different kind of chaos lay in wait for him, and he wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.

The Weasley clan was standing over Fred's body. Molly was sobbing into Arthur's shoulder while he stared numbly down at what remained of his son. Ron hovered with them, Hermione tucked into his side. Most of the bodies of fallen Death Eaters had been laid out on the Slytherin tables. Harry would have to tell them not to put Snape there – once he told them where to find his body.

He reached out and caught an Auror by the shoulder as she passed. "Have they found all the Death Eaters yet?"

"A fair number of them, I think," she said. She nodded toward the Slytherin table where dead Death Eaters were laid out in ranks and the Death Eaters still alive had been chained together, several Aurors standing guard over them.

"I want to go see," Harry said. He marched toward the Slytherin table, determination in his eyes. The Auror followed him.

Now that everything was over, Harry had to find out who that boy was, if he'd survived, if he could somehow be saved. He went straight to the row of bound Death Eaters. A few of them glared or hissed epithets, but most of them were silent in their defeat.

Harry studied them one at a time, face by face, searching for a familiar one, but he wasn't among the captured. Strangely enough, the Auror had already found him. She stood over him, head bowed, as if she were paying her respects.

And he was dead.

Harry stood over the body, staring at that face, utterly alien and unfamiliar in its lifelessness. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing himself to remain in control. He should have expected this – he'd just fought a war. People died in war. He'd had no reason to expect this boy to live. It just seemed so unfair, that everyone who loved him had to die.

_I'll be waiting for you on the other side._

The boy had fully expected to die, and he had assumed Harry would do the same. _Harry_ had expected to do the same. That didn't soften the pain at all.

"Did you know him?" The Auror wasn't looking at him, her face hidden by the cowl of her robes, and Harry realized that she didn't care who he was. Something about her tone was genuinely sympathetic.

"No. I'd never seen him before. I ran into him in the corridor, but…he didn't hurt me. Maybe – maybe he was a spy. What was his name?"

"Tiberius Prince," the girl said. "The other Death Eaters say he was related to Snape, that he was a half-blood and they'd discovered he was a spy. Do you know which side he was on?"

Harry studied the dead boy's face once more, and he could see it, similarities to Severus Snape in those pale features. He'd thought the boy wore a glamour in the alcove, but maybe it was the dim light. In the stark firelight of the Great Hall, he could see the boy's face clearly, pale and lifeless. _Tiberius Prince,_ he mused, testing the weight and rhythm of the name in his mind. _So that's who you were. How did you know me?_

"Maybe the other Death Eaters weren't lying," Harry said. He kept his tone low and cautious. "Severus Snape was a spy."

There was a flinch, imperceptible, from the Auror. "What makes you believe that? Rumors were that you hated him all through school."

"He was a spy."

"Was?"

"He's dead. In the Shrieking Shack. Someone should go – go and get him. But he doesn't deserve to be put – here." Harry's hands curled into fists. "People might remember Snape as a grumpy bastard, but he was a hero. He deserves better than _this._ "

"When all is said and done, who knows what nonsense the new Ministry will tell us about our heroes."

Harry heard bitterness in the edges of her voice, and he cast her a sidelong glance. He couldn't see her face still, and her anonymity made him uneasy. "What do you think they'll tell us?"

"That Severus Snape was a noble man, honest and good, who fought for his people." Her tone was fierce, angry. Harry wished he could see her face. Something about her wasn't right.

"Snape was _noble_ and good," Harry said. He wondered how she had known him so well. She might have been a former Slytherin student who'd attended Hogwarts with Snape as her head of house. Harry's fingers curled around his wand, and he was ready with a stunning spell.

"He was hardly honest. A spy is the most dishonest person alive – or dead. And he was noble, but he certainly wasn't _good._ He'd damn to hell the first person who suggested such in his presence."

"He fought for his people," Harry said, still stalling. He honestly believed that, despite his prickly exterior, Severus Snape had been unshakably good.

"He fought for himself, for his craven memories and desperate regrets. He fought in hopes that he might be able to atone for all the ugliness he'd caused in the world. Even spies do ugly things." The girl stood oddly still, and Harry wondered if she were alive at all, or if he were speaking to a robed statue and that voice was coming from somewhere else. He wasn't sure he should get close enough to find out.

Unease prickled down Harry's spine once more. "You don't sound surprised that he was a spy. Or like you hated him."

"I don't." The Auror's voice shook, though with pain or anger Harry couldn't tell. He suspected it was both. "I don't hate him one bit. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for him. He did _this_ for me." She lifted a hand and dragged the back of her wrist over her eyes. The gesture made her flinch. Harry wondered if she was injured, if she needed to let the Healers get a look at her, but she let her hand fall to her side.

"Did what for you?" Harry asked.

"Let me live when he otherwise should have let me die."

Harry understood. That was how she'd known he was a spy – he'd saved her, an Auror, instead of murdering her in cold blood.

"Are _you_ alive, Harry Potter?"

His mind was still whirling with shock, and her question blindsided him. "What do you mean?"

"Now that everything is done, are you going to live your life, or will you spend it grieving for those who were lost along the way?"

Harry straightened up and studied the girl more closely. Who the hell _was_ she? "I'm just fine, thank you very much," he said. "I don't think you quite understand what a relief it is, knowing I don't have some Dark Lord out for my life."

"Relief isn't happiness – it's just a temporary placeholder until you start living again, or you give up the ghost altogether." The girl took a step forward. "Do you want to live, Harry?"

"I'm not sure what you mean –"

She reached out and pressed a folded piece of parchment into his hands. Then she turned around and walked away. Harry reached out to catch her arm, but she moved quickly, and a moment later she was barking orders at a cadre of young Aurors, prodding them into moving Tiberius' body.

After a moment of wallowing in frustration, Harry looked down at the parchment she'd given him, and he unfolded it with shaking hands. On it was a map and a set of numbers that might have been coordinates.

And above that was written one word: “Independence.”


	17. Of Explanations and Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has some explanations for Hermione and confessions for Ron.

"Harry, what happened out there?" Hermione asked. Harry sat with her and Ron in the grass beneath the massive oak that stood on the edge of the newly repaired Burrow property. "After you left…How did you do it? How did you go out there and just let yourself –"

Die. The word hung on the air, heavy and ominous. No one wanted to say it. In their quiet conversations in the past weeks, none of them had been able to bring themselves to say it aloud.

Harry reached up and tugged off his glasses, then swiped a hand over his eyes. "Let myself do what? What I was supposed to do? Easy. I'm the Boy Who Lived." At Hermione's skeptical expression, he sighed. "I didn't just let myself." He wasn't suicidal. He had just been – resigned. Resolved. Ready to do what he had to do. He couldn't have let all those people die in vain. "When I was out there, I saw my parents, and Remus and Sirius too."

"Like in the graveyard?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head. "No. Through the stone. The third Hallow. I saw them all. But they told me it would be all right. That's how I did it."

"Harry," Hermione said, and she sounded helpless.

Ron scooted a bit closer to Harry. He was grateful for the silent support and warmth.

"I was surprised that I didn't see Cedric," Harry said, and glanced at Hermione. "Of all the people I thought I would get to see with the stone, I thought he would be one of them. But he wasn't there." His throat tightened, but he refused to cry. Everything was over. There was nothing left but to start a new life and rebuild.

"You're still blaming yourself about Diggory's death?" Ron asked. "Look – you've saved the entire world. You can't go feeling awful about every bad thing that You-Know-Who – that _Voldemort_ did. It was _his_ fault, all right? So let it go."

"Ron!" Hermione sounded scandalized. She flashed Harry a sympathetic look and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "It probably didn't mean anything that you didn't see him. After all, Voldemort didn't kill Remus, and you saw him, so it wasn't as if you would see everyone he'd killed again. You just saw people who are family, I suppose." She gave him a quick squeeze and tried to smile.

Harry knew what she was really saying, what she couldn't say in front of Ron. _It doesn't mean Cedric didn't love you._ Harry knew, more than anything else he'd ever known, that Cedric had loved him. He'd just wanted to see him one last time.

"Well," Ron said finally, though he sounded a bit shaken. "It was good that you saw your family then, eh? I'll bet that helped. Immensely." From his tone, Ron knew he'd just offered the biggest understatement in wizarding history, but he didn't seem to know what else to say.

Harry wasn't sure how to tell his two best friends that some very hot, very intense sex with a random stranger – _Death Eater_ – had gone a long way toward helping him face down his destiny. He almost wanted to laugh. _Everyone thinks I'm a hero, but I'm just like every other bloke out there – didn't want to die a virgin._

Didn't want to die alone.

And that's what it amounted to, didn't it? When he'd faced down Voldemort, he hadn't been alone. He'd had the strength and love of a thousand people behind him, and he'd fulfilled his destiny.

"It's done," Harry said. "Everything is…done. Maybe we can finally rest." Something about that statement made him feel old, used up. Or perhaps he was still very tired.

Hermione nodded. "Now that everything is over, we could visit Godric's Hollow properly this time, maybe see about having your parents' old house rebuilt."

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Actually, I was thinking of…taking a break for a while. Going off and seeing the world. By myself."

Hermione blinked. "Really? Alone?"

Harry nodded and opened his eyes. "Yeah. I want to see the Muggle world a bit. After all, everything we did saved them too, you know? And I want to see it. See what we would have lost."

"Oh," Ron said in a small voice. “D'you know where you're going first?"

"America, definitely." Harry didn't tell Ron that he was going there because he had solved a clue on a piece of parchment given to him by a strange girl who had disturbed him more thoroughly than he could explain. "I've heard Disney World is brilliant fun."

"But Harry, what about NEWTS and seventh year and Auror training?" Hermione's eyes were wide with surprise and hurt, but she was clearly doing her best to be both supportive and helpful.

"I'm not sure," Harry confessed. "I think I might want to become an Auror. Eventually. But I've been a dark wizard-catcher almost my whole life, don't you think? I should try something brand new. My mother was raised a muggle. Snape was half-muggle, and he probably knew more about muggles than I do. I have to find out."

He wasn't sure he could explain that the note the girl had given him had affected him in more ways than one. _Independence_ – it had become his mantra of late. The wizarding world had fought against Voldemort to stop him from stealing what independence they had, but Harry still felt he hadn't escaped the man's shadow. He needed some time to figure out how to be _Harry_ and not Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived Twice.

"That's fair," Ron said. He smiled slightly. "You'll have to bring back loads of random muggle souvenirs."

"For your dad, especially." Harry turned and nudged Hermione's shoulder with his. "I doubt you'll be interested in socket wrenches or things."

She smiled tightly. "Something decidedly _American_ wouldn't be amiss, I think."

"Of course," Ron said, "Hermione'd be more pleased if you brought back an American girlfriend or something. Take the attention off of us, you know." For all that Ron had been jealous of Harry's press coverage in years past, he was now experiencing his own celebrity grief. The Prophet hailed Ron and Hermione as the darling couple of the war, the symbol of new hope for the future – a pureblood hero and his muggle-born genius girlfriend. If Molly's subtle hints at another marriage in the family weren't pressure enough, the blatant cries for romance from the readers of Witch Weekly were far worse. "Unless you and Ginny have some possibility in the future…"

At the sound of Ginny's name, Harry winced. Hermione's eyebrows went up, and she cast Harry a look. His heart sank. She'd been nagging him about coming out to Ron for the past few days. Harry didn't want to make an already awkward conversation even more awkward.

"I don't think Harry's quite that interested in Ginny," Hermione said, her tone deceptively casual.

"Is that what you told her?" Ron asked.

"I've told her," Harry said, "but I don't think she's listening to me, not really."

Ron took a deep breath. Harry knew he was looking for the right words. As much as he was insanely protective of his little sister, the entire Weasley family had banded together to help Harry as much as possible in the aftermath of the War. "Do you really mean it? She was upset about what you said at the end of Sixth Year, but then later that summer…"

Hermione was eyeing Harry speculatively as well, because she had already had words with him over "leading Ginny on," which he was sure he wasn't doing and she was sure he was.

"I told her, and I quote, 'I'm not interested in a relationship.'" Harry picked at a dandelion, and he could hear Snape's voice in his head, castigating him for the way he abused his potions ingredients. His head was full of memories these days, memories of the dead.

"Oh. Well, she keeps looking at you like she's waiting for the right moment, that eventually you'll give in and – _marry_ her or something." Ron's tone took on a hint of warning. Ginny was his little sister, and he wouldn't stand for any blokes messing her about.

Harry glanced at Ron, then back at Hermione. She had the faintest hints of smugness tugging at the corners of her expression, and it irked him. So he said to Ron, "Are you and Hermione getting married any time soon?"

That earned a splutter and a bright red face as Ron struggled for words. "What? No! That's absolutely _mad!_ We're just kids." Then he darted an apologetic, embarrassed look at Hermione. "You know I love you, but –"

She shrugged and shook her head. "I understand. I have ambitions and dreams I want to fulfill, and we're both young. We have time for grand adventures, and we should live them."

"Hopefully they don't involve a tent in the Forest of Dean," Ron said.

"Well, you can see how Ginny's hopes for a future with me are a bit…misguided." Harry knew he was treading a thin line, trying to express his utter lack of desire for Ron's sister without insulting her outright.

"It's not as if Ginny's a bad sort. Pretty enough," Ron said.

Harry saw the earnest hope in his best friend's eyes and winced. Hermione shot him another pointed look, and Harry shook his head. Hermione tilted her head in Ron's direction again and glared. Fiercely. The silence between them dragged on long enough for Ron to notice, and he twisted around to peer at Hermione. When she shrugged and offered an innocent look, Ron turned to Harry. On Harry's other side, Hermione smiled triumphantly. Harry felt his heart drop into his shoes. It was time to tell Ron. "About me coming home from America with a girl…"

Ron shrugged one shoulder. "I was just having you on, mate. Hermione and I are fine. She copes well under pressure."

Hermione opened her mouth for a witty remark, then snapped it shut before Ron got distracted or Harry managed to weasel away from the topic. He sighed.

"Listen, I don't know how to say this –"

"Just say it, then." Ron gazed at him frankly. "We're not _girls_. Well, Hermione's a girl, but she's one of us, yeah? You don't have to be nice to me all the time. Not that most girls are _nice_ to me, but – you know what I mean. What is it?"

"See, during Fourth Year," Harry began, and took a deep breath, "when Hermione was, er, dating Viktor Krum –"

Ron looked irritated at any mention of Krum even now. "Just _say_ it, Harry. Really. We're best friends."

"I'm gay."

Ron blinked once, twice. Opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

Harry desperately wanted to say something to break the awful silence, but he knew Ron had to say something first.

"But…you're normal," Ron said. "You liked Cho and Ginny and you play Quidditch and…I take it you don’t mean _happy?_ " Ron's expression was a mix between disbelief and newly-realized horror. "Not that you've looked all that happy lately. "

Harry said nothing, just met Ron's gaze plainly, waiting for the verdict.

Ron's face went pale, and he tore his gaze away from Harry. "Bloody hell. You mean it, don't you? That you like to…you know…with blokes?" The newly-realized horror rose anew in his eyes. "Is there a bloke?" From the look on his face, he was picturing someone like Blaise Zabini.

"No," Harry began. "Not right now—"

"But you've _had_ a - a _boy_ friend?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

Harry took a deep breath. "During Fourth Year, when Hermione was dating Viktor Krum –"

"You were too?"

"No! No. Hermione and I were not sharing Krum." Harry shuddered.

Hermione uttered a wordless sound of indignation.

"Tell me it wasn't Malfoy."

"It wasn't – what? No! Hermione said the same bloody thing. I've never even _fancied_ Malfoy. He's not my type." Harry ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.

Ron pinned Hermione with a look. "You knew?"

It was her turn to look uncomfortable. "Harry told me Fifth Year."

Ron turned his glare back on Harry. "And you didn't tell me? We're best mates, Harry. I tell you _everything._ "

Harry looked away, embarrassed. "Did you really want to sit around listening to us compare kisses between Krum and Cedric?"

Ron blinked. "Diggory? Pretty-boy Diggory? Then why did you keep talking about Krum?"

Harry felt his hands curl into fists. "Because I was trying to ease my way into it, but you're so bloody _blunt_ sometimes."

Ron continued to look poleaxed. "Diggory? But he – and Cho –"

"Were just friends who danced together at the Ball."

Ron's mouth fell open, and he could only stare blankly at Harry while he tried to process what he'd just learned.

Harry bit his lip. Fear curled in the pit of his stomach, and he knew that if Ron didn't say something soon he would probably be sick. What if Hermione was wrong? What if Ron was disgusted by him and never spoke to him again?

Ron tore his gaze away from Harry and Hermione, and he stared down at his hands. "I can't believe you never told me," he said, and his voice was low, hurt.

Hermione, who had looked smug at the start of the confession, looked thoroughly guilty. "Ron, it wasn't my secret to tell."

He nodded. "I know. I know. That doesn’t mean I'm not still…angry about it. Why, Harry? Didn't you trust me?"

"You're my best mate, Ron, but I – didn't know what you'd say, if we'd still be friends after I told you." Harry stared down at his shoes, hunching his shoulders defensively. "It's not always taken so well in muggle society, and I've never heard wizards or witches mention it at all. I didn't know how to tell you. And I didn't really want to talk about it, either."

"Talk about what, that you wanted to snog me or something?"

"No, that I'd watched the boy I love die."

Ron went quiet. After another agonizing silence, he said, "I'm sorry. I – I need to think about this." He pushed himself to his feet and started back toward the burrow. Harry and Hermione watched him go.

"It wasn't that awful," Hermione said, but she sounded uncertain.

"Well, he was more hacked about me and Cedric than he was about you and Viktor, so I suppose you were right about that." Harry said. He buried his face in his hands and groaned. What was he supposed to do now, just live in Ron's house and not talk to him and wait for Ron to tell everyone he was a shirt-lifter and then get kicked out because he didn't want to fall madly in love with Ginny and have loads of kids?

Hermione tried to smile. "I know Ron better than you do. Really, Harry, everything will be all right. Just give him a few days to –"

In the distance, Ron came to a sharp halt. Then he spun on his heel and marched right back to them. Harry tensed – he could see anger in Ron's face, especially as his face was dangerously close to being darker than his hair.

"Hermione, you said you never actually dated Viktor!" Ron said.

Harry pushed himself to his feet and ducked away from the trees before Ron could drag him into the fight.

* * *

Harry stood beside the fireplace in the Burrow, bag packed, passport in hand should Muggle authorities accost him on his way.

"Send an owl as soon as you get there," Molly said.

"I will," Harry said as he leaned in to hug her.

Her smile, though cheerful, was strained. She missed Fred still, and she hadn't been oblivious to the uncomfortable silence that had lingered between Harry, Ron, and Hermione for the past few weeks. Whether or not she was more annoyed at Harry or Ron, Harry couldn't tell.

"Take good care of yourself, lad, but know we're here should you need us." Arthur's expression was warm, if tired. Rebuilding the ministry was hard work, but he was dedicated. While Molly fussed with a packed lunch, Arthur darted in to whisper, "I hear American muggles have massive buildings dedicated to so-called 'power tools'. You must visit one and tell me all about it." He pressed a card into Harry's hand, and Harry nodded, wondering if he should just tell him about the hardware section of the local Asda.

Perhaps he'd see if the American muggles had anything Arthur would be unlikely to stumble across. "I'll see about finding you something special, Mr. Weasley." Harry smiled and pocketed the business card, then turned to George.

"Have loads of fun, mate," George said, and clapped him on the shoulder. His grin looked too bright, too manic without Fred's slightly calmer smile beside it. "Scope out the competition, see if the Yanks have any good pranks."

"Will do." Harry grinned and shook his hand. Charlie gave him a travel snitch to practice with, and Bill handed him a list of useful curse-breaking tips and spells.

Ginny hugged him tentatively, but when she smiled she no longer looked hopeful – or hurt. Harry had told her a week ago, and she'd taken it surprisingly well.

Hermione dragged him into a tight hug and whispered, "I'll miss you so much. Good luck, and be careful, all right?" Then she lowered her voice even more and breathed into his ear, "I would be glad if you came home with a golden, blond California surfer boy. I hear they're worth a fancy." And she stepped back before Harry could say anything in reply. She grinned.

Harry blushed. "Thanks, Hermione. Good luck with your NEWTs. I'll do my best to write often."

Molly looked relieved that their farewell was fond.

Ron stepped up last. He and Harry looked at each other, both unsure of what to say. Harry could only utter a wordless sound of surprise when Ron yanked him into a fierce hug.

"You're my best mate," Ron whispered, too low for the others to hear. "I'm sorry about being such a prat. It doesn’t matter if you don't marry Ginny – you'll always be the extra brother I always wanted. So go to America and have fun and – write. If you come back with a Yank I – I won't mind." Then he pulled back and ducked his head, embarrassed.

Relief flooded through Harry, and he was shocked into stillness as he realized that he wouldn't be losing his best friend. Molly peered at him anxiously, and Harry realized everyone was watching, could sense the tension in the air. Harry managed to regain some of his composure. He smiled at Ron, then at the others. "I'll miss you all. Thank you, everyone, for everything."

Arthur checked his pocket-watch. "You'd best be going if you don't want to miss the portkey."

Harry nodded, cast some floo powder in the fireplace, stepped into the green flames, and called out, "Department of International Transport, Ministry of Magic." Then he spun away.


	18. Of Harry and Cedric, or The Past is not Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Cedric. A flashback of sorts

1.

"What was your question, Harry?"

Cedric darted a glance over his shoulder, looking nervous.

In the pit of his stomach, Harry began to realize that this hadn't been such a good idea after all. The corridor outside the prefects' bathroom was empty, but it was just off the concourse that led to the astronomy tower, which was a notoriously popular destination.

"I recognized your handwriting on the note the house elf gave me, the one about meeting me," Cedric continued. "Er...Dobby, is it? He's quite fond of you."

Harry blinked. "I - yes. How - how do you know that?"

Cedric ducked his head, running a nervous hand through his hair.

"Sometimes I go down to the kitchens after Quidditch practice to get snacks for the team. You know, a bit of a reward for hard work done. And Dobby always talks about how you freed him and arranged for a paying job."

Harry's cheeks burned. Cedric must have thought he was an utter nutter.

"Well, I --"

Cedric darted another glance over his shoulder. "Come on - we should go in before someone sees us."

Harry frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"You're not a prefect. McGonagall'd have my badge for this." Cedric murmured the password, and the door swung open. Once they were inside, Cedric set down his book bag and sat down on the cold stone floor. "You wanted to discuss something. At least, that's what I inferred from the note. Was I wrong?"

"No!" Harry blurted out. "It's just - from your hint. I didn't really understand, and I didn't want to get into trouble for, you know, getting too much help." He eased himself down onto the cool flagstone opposite Cedric and waited for an answer.

"I'm sorry, it's just - I could never find a good time to speak to you alone, and then Cho was impatient. You gave me a very straightforward hint, and I'm sorry I was such a prat about returning the favor." Cedric chuckled nervously, and Harry found himself staring at Cedric's mouth.

Cedric was too attractive for his own good.

"Well, the fact of the matter is, you have to take your egg and open it underwater. I don't know how you'd manage with just the dorm showers at your disposal, and I don't think you'd want a drubbing in the Black Lake, so you should try it in the bath. Here."

Harry looked at the large, empty bath, then back at Cedric.

Cedric nodded encouragingly. "Yeah. Sometime, when you have a chance to be alone, come for a bath. It's really relaxing after Quidditch practice anyway." Then he sighed. "Not that we have Quidditch this year."

Quidditch. Cedric had won their last game against each other and then had gallantly offered a rematch. Harry had wanted to smash his face in then. Now his face inspired an entirely different reaction. Harry blushed and tore his gaze away from Cedric's mouth. He couldn't keep _staring_ like that.

Cedric stood up quickly. "At any rate, I should...let you to it, then. I'll just go study. And you - you enjoy your bath."

Harry was alarmed. Cedric was going to leave him alone? In the prefects' bath? What if another prefect came in?

"Aren't you going to stay?" Harry blurted out, and he blushed to the roots of his hair.

Cedric paused, surprised, and then said, "Not to worry - no one else can get in until you leave."

"Oh." Harry was glad Cedric was as nice as everyone said he was and hadn't made fun of him.

Cedric paused at the door. "If you like, when you're done, we can talk again."

Harry felt his entire face light up. "Yeah - that'd be great."

"All right. I suppose you'll know how to find me." Cedric smiled and then slipped out the door.

* * *

2.

"I didn't put my name in the cup, you know."

Cedric blinked, surprised by the sudden conversation, but Harry merely fell into step beside him, intent on supper at the Great Hall. Cedric smiled down at him. Something tugged in his chest when Harry offered a small, cautious smile in return.

"I know," he said.

Harry's brow furrowed.

 _Because you're a good person_ , Cedric thought. He didn't say it aloud. "You wouldn't have told me about the dragons if you had."

Harry blinked, as if surprised by the decency of his own action. "It was the right thing to do was all. Like you asking the others not to wear Malfoy's stupid badges." And then he smiled up at Cedric, brighter this time. "Thanks for that, by the way. Malfoy's a bit of a pillock."

Cedric lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "No problem." He waved and then headed to the Hufflepuff table where Simon and Ben were waiting. He wasn't sure why Harry had decided to speak to him so suddenly, but he realized that he wouldn't mind if it happened again.

* * *

3.

The room was set with three double desks, some comfortable chairs, a sofa, and a fireplace, and it was decorated in understated Hufflepuff colors.

Harry blinked. Surely the Hufflepuff common room wasn't so small.

As if sensing Harry's puzzlement, Cedric said, "This is the Hufflepuff prefects' lounge."

"Oh." Harry stood awkwardly just over the threshold. "And thanks again for the hint."

"No need. You did help me first." Cedric set down his book bag and perched on the edge of the nearest desk.

Drat. Now they had to talk.

"The thing I'd miss most is my wand," Harry blurted out. Immediately, he turned red.

Cedric didn't seem to think the comment was stupid, and his expression turned thoughtful. "We couldn't really compete without our wands, though."

Harry nodded, feeling even more stupid.

"I see your point, however. A wizard is more than just his magic - he's a person. Perhaps we're to be tested on our mettle. Without wands." Cedric's words were measured, as if he were taking Harry's suggestion seriously. "Assuming they don't take our wands, what else do we treasure?"

"I...Ron and Hermione," Harry said. "Every summer when I go --" he wouldn't call that place home -- "away I miss Hogwarts and my friends. Since they can't put the entire castle in the Black Lake, well, they could put people down there, couldn't they?"

"That sounds a bit dangerous, leaving people with the merfolk." Cedric tapped his chin, musing. "Do people count as treasures? I mean, my Aunt Laurel used to call me 'Little Treasure,' but --" He cut himself off, blushing furiously.

Harry hid a snicker behind one hand.

"Don't tell anyone, please," Cedric said. "I'd never live it down."

Harry nodded. "All right. So..." He wracked his brain for something else to say, something that wasn't moronic or embarrassing. "I'd miss my broom. I mean, it is a Firebolt."

Cedric laughed. "Spoken like a true Quidditch player."

* * *

4.

"Swotting up again, Little Treasure?"

Cedric lifted his head sharply, ready with a quick remark, but then he saw Harry standing beside his carrel and he relaxed.

"How can you be inside on a day like this?" Harry asked.

"I have NEWTS to worry about," Cedric said. It was the truth, but even his roommates had started making comments about how he studied too much. Cedric glanced around at the other students packed into the library and realized that he was sitting in the same carrel as yesterday, and the day before that. Mild horror curled through him. He had a _regular spot._

"Your NEWTS are a year away." Harry glanced over his shoulder. "Looks like Hermione has finally bossed Ron into studying. Knew she'd win eventually. You, on the other hand, need to get some sunlight."

Cedric glanced at his pocket watch. He'd been hunched over his books for nearly three hours. "Oh, all right. Just for half an hour or something."

Harry broke into a grin, and Cedric felt his heart thump oddly in his chest.

This was just great - he was acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. He was a Triwizard Champion, a prefect, captain of the Quidditch team. He wasn't supposed to feel all fluttery whenever Harry smiled, even if Harry's green eyes were bright and the curve of his lips was sweet --

Cedric swept all his books into his bag and hurried out of the library. He followed Harry through a maze of corridors - Harry knew them better than Cedric, who was a prefect with night patrol duties - to the garden behind Professor Sprout's greenhouses.

As soon as they were outside, Harry tilted his head back and closed his eyes, basking in the sun.

"See, Little Treasure? Aren't you glad you came with me?"

"Only my Aunt Laurel gets to call me that, you know," Cedric said.

Harry opened his eyes and flashed Cedric a saucy grin. "Oh really?"

"Yes, really."

"What's she like, your Aunt Laurel?"

Cedric shuddered slightly at the memory. Then he affected a high-pitched, creaky woman's voice.

" _Cedric, my little treasure, look how much you've grown! I remember when you were knee-high to a kneazle. With a pretty face like yours, Amos should have no trouble buying you a wife._ "

Harry fell back against a tree, clutching his ribs he was laughing so hard.

Cedric dropped the mimicry and joined in, laughing as well.

"Does she really say that? 'Buy you a wife'?" Harry asked once he could speak again.

Cedric nodded. "Yes. Aunt Laurel's very old and rather out-of-touch with the times." Then he swiped a hand over his face and said, "I rather despise it when people call me pretty."

"But you _are_ good-looking," Harry said.

"If you say so. It just frustrates me that people think I'm good-looking and nothing more." Cedric reached up and loosened his tie. Then he glanced at Harry and smiled. "At least you don't call me Pretty-boy Diggory. Blokes aren't meant to be pretty."

"Hermione says girls can be handsome, so it stands to reason blokes can be pretty," Harry offered.

Something in Cedric's chest warmed at Harry's attempts to be comforting.

"Hermione is very wise. Perhaps, every now and again, we should try to see the world as she does."

"Yeah, Hermione's absolutely brilliant. Ron and I would be lost without her."

"I'm glad you have her, then," Cedric said.

Harry flashed another of those heart-stopping smiles. "Now I have you as well, yeah? I didn't realize you were so funny."

Cedric clutched his heart melodramatically. "O woe is me, the pretty swot - no one realized I might have a sense of humor." The antic drew a laugh out of Harry.

"I've realized it," Harry said. "And I rather like the thought of keeping it my secret."

Cedric bowed deeply. "As you wish, good master, I will be here to make you laugh whenever you so choose."

Harry drew himself to his full height, lifting his chin imperiously. "That's right. Make me laugh, Pretty Swot."

"All right! Stop me if you've heard this one..."

* * *

5.

Harry lolled in the grass, nibbling on a pumpkin pasty and soaking what he could of the weak winter sun.

"I could get used to this, knocking about with the most handsome boy in school and getting me some charmed winter warmth."

Cedric groaned. "Don't start that nonsense again. I can barely stand it when Cho says it, even though I know she's only joking."

A few weeks ago, Harry would have flinched at any mention of Cho, remembering how embarrassed he'd been when she turned him down before the Yule Ball, but now it didn't bother him nearly as much as he thought it would have.

"Well, you _are_ the most handsome boy at school, and I'm the - craziest boy at school. That's right - my scar prickles whenever evil people look at me, I hear basilisks in the walls, and…"

"And you can't tell me about your adventure third year," Cedric said. "I understand."  
He smiled, and Harry's heart skipped a beat. He scolded himself for acting like a stupid teenage girl.

Harry opened his mouth to apologize for keeping secrets, but Cedric beat him to it.

"How about we stop being the most handsome boy at school at the craziest boy at school and we just be friends?"

Harry tilted his head to peer at the boy beside him. "Really?"

"Really." Cedric had his arms folded behind his head and was sprawled out in the grass, gazing up at the sky. "When it's just us, we can forget the tournament. We're friends."

"Will your dorm mates like that?"

"Not their choice to make, is it?" Cedric turned and smiled at Harry again, and Harry wondered what it was about him – plain, ordinary Harry – that made Cedric smile. "So do you agree? Friends?"

Harry decided he didn't care why Cedric smiled as long as Cedric would smile for him more often. "Friends."

* * *

6.

Cedric passed Harry in the corridor on his way to transfiguration. When Harry didn’t notice him, he nudged Harry's shoulder with his.

Harry's head came up, and he looked furious, ready to yell at who he probably thought was Malfoy, but Cedric caught his gaze and smiled.

"Hello, friend," he murmured.

He felt a rush of triumph when Harry smiled back and said,

"And hello to you, friend."

This was victory; Harry _cared_ about him, considered him a friend, was happy that Cedric liked him. It was perfect, it was connection, the knowledge that they existed somewhere outside of the madness that was Hogwarts and the Tournament where they were _friends_. In their quiet sphere of friendship, it was just the two of them. For a moment, Cedric couldn't breathe.

Then Simon was tugging on Cedric's wrist, eager to point out his newest love interest, and Ron was dragging Harry away. The moment was broken, but it stayed with Cedric for the rest of the day.

* * *

7.

"I thought you were going to drown."

The soft voice brought Harry to a halt. Dean and Seamus didn't notice and kept on walking, intent on supper at the Great Hall.

Harry turned.

Cedric stood in an alcove, half-shadowed between two suits of armor. Harry hadn't talked to him since the Second Task. Cedric hadn't even looked at him since then either, though at the time Harry had assumed that Cedric had just been worried about Cho. Harry had been worried about Ron and Gabrielle, after all. But after two weeks, during which Harry realized that Cedric was deliberately avoiding him, this sudden burst of conversation – without apology – was galling.

"I knew - or foolishly assumed - that Cho and the others wouldn't drown, but you were down there for so long."

Cedric's grey eyes were dark as storm clouds, and Harry couldn't tell if he was angry or afraid. Possibly both. Harry knew that tight set to Cedric's jaw; Cedric ground his teeth to avoid yelling whenever he was particularly angry. The utter paleness of Cedric's face, however, spoke of fear. The last time he'd looked that pale, he'd been standing on the edge of the Black Lake, waiting for the Second Task to begin.

Cedric said, "You're brave and stupid in your nobility. _What the hell were you thinking?_ "

Harry recoiled, stung by the sharp words.

Cedric stepped forward. He lifted a hand, reaching toward Harry.

Harry ducked away from the touch. "I was only doing what was right," he snapped.

Cedric closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "I know." He opened his eyes and met Harry's gaze, and Harry was unsettled by the unreadable emotion he saw there. "I wish I could do the same." Then he dodged around Harry and walked away quickly, head bowed.

* * *

8.

"I thought we were friends."

Cedric lifted his head but didn't turn. He knew that voice.

"I --"

"What the bloody hell was that, before supper?" Harry stepped into the tower and let the door swing shut behind him. He crossed the small stone room and planted himself firmly beside the windowsill where Cedric huddled, small and pathetic.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Cedric said. They were weak words, but he didn't know what else to say, couldn't begin to explain the panic he'd felt when Harry hadn't come up for air after the hour mark, the pain that had gripped him when he realized that Harry might have been dead.

" _Look at me when I'm talking to you!_ "

Cedric turned to obey, and his chest tightened at the brilliant fire in Harry's green eyes. His cheeks were flushed, and his lips were parted, and Cedric had to look away before he did something stupid.

Harry reached out and shook Cedric's shoulder roughly. "I trusted you. I listened to you and believed in you, believed that you were as good as everyone said - and more. But look at you. You can't even look at me. What happened to being friends, to forgetting the tournament?"

Cedric shook his head, clasping his arms tightly around his knees to stop his hands from shaking.

"Cedric --"

He leapt to his feet, startling Harry and sending him back a few steps.

"I can't do this anymore, all right?" Cedric dragged a hand through his hair. "I was wrong - we can't be friends."

"Ron was right. You're just hacked because I managed to stay tied with you." The venom in Harry's voice was heart-rending.

"Ron's wrong," Cedric said.

"Oh? Then what's the real problem?"

Cedric caught Harry by the wrist and dragged him in close.

"It's this."

He lowered his head and covered Harry's mouth with his for a slow, tentative kiss, just a prolonged press of lips until one of them stopped.

Harry jerked away, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth, green eyes wide with horror.

For a moment Cedric couldn't breathe. Then he said, "I'm sorry," and fled.

* * *

9.

Harry found Cedric three days later, hiding in the stacks in the library and looking about as miserable a Harry felt. Ron and Hermione were fed up with the way he'd been moping about the Gryffindor common room and banished him from their presence. How could he explain that he'd lost one of his best friends because said best friend _fancied_ him? How could they understand what it felt like to be starved of Cedric's voice and smile?

Harry slid up to Cedric, trying to be as quiet as possible so Madame Pince wouldn't throw them out.

Cedric jumped when Harry tapped his shoulder, but didn’t look up.

"Simon," he began tiredly.

"Not Simon," Harry said.

Cedric lifted his head. Dark shadows ringed his eyes, and he looked exhausted. He also looked afraid, more afraid than when he'd been about to face a dragon. "Harry, I --"

"Was that why you don't want to be friends anymore? Because you fancy me?"

Cedric's silence and averted gaze was answer enough, but Harry had to hear him say it. He wanted to know that, if he decided to accept what Cedric had offered, there would be no more hesitation, no more fear. If Cedric could say it out loud, it was real.

"Please, don't do this," Cedric whispered. "I'm sorry - I'd give anything to be friends again if it meant - if it meant you would stop hating me."

Harry placed a hand on Cedric's elbow.

The other boy started at the contact, and he chanced to meet Harry's gaze.

"Who said I hated you?" Harry asked.

Cedric reached up to drag a hand through his hair in frustration, but Harry caught his wrist, stilling him.

"How could you _not_ hate me?" And this time Cedric met Harry's gaze squarely, abject misery shining out of his grey eyes. "I _kissed_ you. And I'm a _boy_."

"Of course you're a boy," Harry said, and he smiled slightly. "You're Cedric. And I don't hate you. I still want us to be friends."

Cedric tried to tug his hand free. "You want to be friends with a freak?"

Harry smiled. "I'm the one who hears snakes in the walls."

"It's not the same," Cedric muttered.

"Who said it has to be?"

Cedric's brow furrowed. "I didn't say it had to be, I just meant --" He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. Emotional turmoil robbed him of his eloquence.

Cedric wasn't looking at him, was staring at his shoes like a nervous first year, and Harry realized it was his turn. Cedric had said the words Harry needed to hear, and now it was Harry's turn to take a step forward. So he leaned up his toes and planted a kiss on Cedric's mouth. When he drew back slightly, Cedric looked absolutely petrified.

Harry kissed him again.

This time, Cedric kissed back, if cautiously.

Then he pulled away.

"Harry, are you absolutely sure you know what you're --"

Harry dragged him in for another kiss. "I don't know a thing. I was hoping you'd learn it with me." He offered another smile, and wonder crossed Cedric's face, wonder and awe, as if kissing Harry was like having Christmas come in March.

"So...what, exactly, is an _assignation?_ "

* * *

10.

Cedric buried his face in Harry's neck and tried to ignore the fact that he was a prefect out past curfew on a night he wasn't on patrol, and that he was keeping another student out past curfew as well.

But when Harry made those delicious little noises and writhed in his arms it wasn't easy to think.

Harry laughed softly, stroking Cedric's hair. "We should've found an empty classroom for this."

"I know." Cedric groaned when Harry leaned up and nibbled at that spot right behind his jaw. "It's just - I don't think I could really leave right now --"

Harry smiled beneath Cedric's kiss and said, "Good. It means I've learned something." He'd been driving Cedric mad with little brushes of his fingertips on Cedric's bare skin where Harry dared to delve beneath the hem of his uniform shirt, and now he was sliding his hand higher and higher up Cedric's back, driving him even madder with mere touch.

Cedric captured Harry's mouth in a long, deep kiss. When they came up for air, he said, "Practice makes perfect, after all."

Harry languidly traced the line of Cedric's spine. "And we're diligent at practice, aren't we?"

"We are," Cedric said, and leaned in to kiss Harry again. He was hot all over, burning, and the ache of arousal between his thighs wasn't helping. He knew he'd have to stop soon if he didn't want to push things too far, but then Harry was sliding a hand up his chest, and when his fingertips brushed a nipple Cedric felt another surge of arousal.  
Harry must have felt it too, for he began to stroke the oversensitive nub of flesh, wringing soft moans and gasps from Cedric's lips.

"Like that?" he whispered. "I think I've learned something new."

Cedric managed a wordless sound of approval before he felt Harry's other hand begin the agonizingly slow journey downward. In moments, Cedric would be beyond rational thought. He caught Harry's wrist, and his entire body screamed at him for it, but he had to.

"Harry - don't. You - I can't - not if you're not ready," he managed.

The lust that clouded Harry's eyes began to dissipate. "What?"

Cedric bit his lip to keep from screaming in frustration. He took a few ragged breaths before he could speak again. "It's just - if you do that, I don't know how much further I can go before - "

Harry deliberately tugged his hand lower, but Cedric didn't relent.

"Harry, think, please." Cedric wasn't sure why he said that, as he could barely do so himself.

"Don't you want me?"

The plaintive note in Harry's voice almost broke Cedric's heart, and he gathered Harry into a tight embrace, burying his face in Harry's hair.

"I do want you," he whispered. "I want you more than you can imagine. But I love you, and I don't want to push you or make you do anything stupid, and..."

"And what?" Harry asked.

"And I'd want your first time to be special, not up against the wall in the Charms corridor." Cedric was glad Harry couldn't see his face, because he was blushing hard for his schoolgirl declaration.

Harry relaxed in his arms, and they stood there, breathing together until their heart rates were back to normal.

Cedric lowered his head for another kiss, this one slow and gentle without the urgency of desire behind it. Harry reached up, twining his hands in Cedric's hair to tug him closer, deepen the kiss.

Cedric pulled back gently and said, "It's far past curfew."

"But you're a prefect --"

Cedric placed a finger against Harry's lips. "A prefect who loves you and doesn't want to see you in detention."

Harry's eyes fluttered closed.

"I do love you," Cedric whispered, and when his heart rate went up this time, it was because his heart was soaring. He leaned in and brushed his lips against Harry's once, twice.

Harry opened his eyes and smiled. Cedric was robbed of speech.

Then Harry darted in for another kiss, startling Cedric out of his momentary daze. Harry stepped back, and Cedric pushed away from the wall, pausing mid-motion to stretch.

Harry blushed and smiled.

"Now bed – go," Cedric whispered. He started down the corridor toward the Hufflepuff dormitories, then paused and waved before continuing on.

He made it into the Sixth Year boys' dorm without waking Simon and Ben, so he crawled into his bed and drew the drapes shut before flinging himself down on the mattress and staring up at the ceiling. After a few moments he sat up and unlaced his shoes, kicked them off and reached through the drapes to place them on the chest at the foot of the bed. He squirmed out of the rest of his uniform and then sat there in the dark, wondering if it would really be worth the effort to change into his pajamas and then sneak down to the loo to brush his teeth. Cedric reached up and pressed his fingers lightly to his lips, remembering the sensation of Harry's kisses, and he smiled goofily. Then he lay down and closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep.

* * *

  
11.

Harry glanced over to where Cedric was making a list of all the defensive and offensive spells he thought would be useful in the maze. Harry wouldn't be able to learn all of them, but he'd be able to learn important ones. Cedric would teach him.

Unless Harry's next words ruined it all.

"Cedric."

Cedric glanced up. He looked adorably bookworm-ish, with a smudge of ink across his nose. "Yes?"

"Neville knows."

Cedric's gaze darkened, and he set down his quill. "What? How?"

"One night in the corridor - after you left, I ran into him." Harry stared down at his hands, trying not to fidget. "He promised he wouldn't tell. He - he actually seems to understand, just a bit." Harry lifted his gaze and waited for the verdict.

Cedric rested his chin in his hand, staring out the window of the tower where they'd first kissed. After a few long moments of silence, he said,

"Neville Longbottom. Do you trust him?"

Harry thought of Neville standing up to him, Ron, and Hermione in their first year and taking a full body bind from Hermione without so much as a flinch. He nodded. "Yes, I do."

Cedric sighed. "Then I trust you. We'll just have to be more careful, won't we?"

Harry ducked his head. "Cedric, I'm sorry --"

Cedric placed a finger under his chin and lifted his head so their gazes met. "I said 'we', didn't I? Both of us will be more careful from now on. Sometimes these things happen."

Harry nodded, and Cedric turned the gesture into a caress, tracing the line of Harry's lips.  
"In light of being more careful, here - come learn this muffling charm. It muffles your footsteps so no one can hear you walk."

Harry leaned in, resting his head on Cedric's shoulder, and watched him demonstrate the wand motion.

Cedric was such an excellent wizard.

* * *

12.

Harry looked tense, arms crossed over his chest, head bowed. Over Harry's shoulder, the beautiful Fleur looked ready to sick up on her headmistress's shoes. Krum looked equally grim, but then he was a professional Quidditch player and probably used to the pressure.

Cedric looked at his father and smiled tightly.

_Father, I wish I could tell you about the boy I love._

Beyond Cedric's father, Moody was giving Harry a last-minute pep talk.

Then Bagman called them together, and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, awaiting their fate. Cedric didn't really hear everything Bagman said, just nodded and smiled and tried to look brave, and then the crowds were roaring and the champions were being jostled apart.

Before Cedric's father dragged him all the way to the starting point, Cedric managed to catch Harry's eye.

"Good luck," he said.

"Good luck to you too," Harry whispered back, smiled, and then went to stand beside Moody.

Cedric faced the entrance to the maze and wondered how he would survive.


	19. Of Destinations and Denouement, or Future Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry figures out what _Independence_ means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'm sorry this took so long to post. Super special thanks to my beta: [](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile)[rotaryphones](http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/), who has put up with a lot of me being crazy, and whose awesome artistic skill brought [this](http://community.livejournal.com/twoseekers/253309.html#cutid1) element to the story that I never could've done. Thanks to everyone who's been reading along!

Cedarville, best as Harry understood it, was pretty much like a small town in England, only without decent newsagents or any roundabouts. He thought it was picturesque, high in the mountains of Southern Utah and pleasantly cool even in the summer. It was probably bitterly cold in the winter, but he'd spent a winter in a tent in the Forest of Dean. He could take a little cold.

He felt the locals staring as he wandered down Main Street and toward the south side of town where all the students lived. According to a brochure he'd picked up at the bus stop one town north, Cedarville was a "college" town, boasting all sorts of attractions for students and young people, including a famous Shakespearean festival and various other amusements. If the trucker from whom Harry had hitched a ride was to be believed, college towns were dead in the summer. Judging by the dearth of people on what professed to be Main Street, Harry was inclined to agree.

It was extremely helpful, the way the town's streets were arranged in a perfect grid. It was virtually impossible to get lost in Cedarville. Except Harry had no clue as to where in Cedarville his destination lay. He'd promised Ron that he would owl or fire-call as soon as he arrived, but he couldn't really unleash his magic unless he had somewhere private to stay. As it was, all he had was a load of gear shrunk and stowed in a charmed rucksack, similar to the handbag Hermione had used while they were on the run.

Harry stared at the map the trucker had generously donated, but it was no use. None of the streets were named _Independence._ And he didn't have the first clue as how to find any local wizarding folk either. Harry studied the shop fronts down along Main Street. Surely the local shopkeepers were used to helping lost tourists. Which one would know best?

Lamplight Coffee. A café. The baristas were probably friendly and chatty. Uni students liked to hang about cafés and be intellectual, didn't they? So it wouldn't be strange, a boy Harry's age swanning in and asking for help.

Harry folded the map, shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans, and hurried down the pavement. When he pushed open the door, bells tinkled overhead. The interior of the café was well-lit from the large windows that faced Main Street. An entire wall was covered with bookshelves, and a few comfortable chairs and sofas were scattered across the floor alongside the more conventional wooden dining tables. A dark-haired girl was curled on the end of one of the sofas, engrossed in a large book and sipping coffee from a mug.

Harry started toward the counter, determination burning in his chest. He'd faced down a Dark Lord. He could face down some strangers and ask very bizarre questions.

"I'm still sad that it's your last week," the girl behind the counter said. She wore a dark green apron and an employee badge; she was mixing some complicated caffeine confection for a sullen-looking boy in a long black coat. She wasn't talking to him, though. Rather, she was conversing with someone out of sight, in the back room behind the counter. "I can't _believe_ you're _abandoning_ me to the caffeine-addicted masses for some job at a juvie hall."

"It's _not_ a 'juvie hall,’" came the muffled reply.

A male voice. Familiar. Harry narrowed his eyes, his questions quelled as he listened.

"It’s a perfectly respectable facility that houses troubled teenage girls," the man continued. "And I'm not abandoning you either. I'll still live in town, and I'll still work days, so you can see me. If you like."

"You're my _friend_. Of _course_ I'll still see you." The girl's exaggerated emphasis of words was horribly reminiscent of Pansy Parkinson, and Harry shuddered. The girl smiled at the boy in the coat and handed him his drink. The boy uttered a grunt that might have expressed gratitude, and he and the girl traded bills for coins before the boy shuffled out the front door, sipping his beverage.

The girl turned her bright gaze on Harry. "Welcome to Lamplight Coffee. How may I help you?"

He resisted the urge to fidget. Despite the nonsense printed in the Daily Prophet, Harry didn't think of himself as a hero, and he could barely bring himself to act like a "noble champion of the light," let alone interrogate this girl as if she owed him something. Maybe she did, on some level, but Harry wouldn't tell her that. "I have a bit of a weird question, actually," he began, and her entire face lit up.

She actually squealed. "Oooh! You're from England too!"

"Too?" Harry stepped closer, green eyes wide. "Did – did someone from England come in here before me?" It would be too good to be true, if someone from home had just preceded him, but he didn't believe in coincidences these days. Perhaps he had come to the right place after all.

The girl clapped her hands, delighted. "I just _love_ British accents! You'll be wanting tea, right?"

Harry's hands curled into fists; she hadn't answered his question, and frustration was beginning to creep along his nerves. "Please, miss –"

That voice from the back room interrupted them both. "Honestly, Christine, not everyone from England drinks tea."

Harry's pulse quickened. That voice was utterly familiar, but maybe it was because Harry had recognized an English accent amid a slew of American ones. He probably didn't know the stranger at all.

Christine turned. "Well, you're an Englishman. Why don't _you_ talk to him?"

And then the man stepped out of the back room, and Harry felt time itself grind to a halt.

What Harry saw was impossible. The man who stood framed in the doorway bore an uncanny resemblance to Cedric Diggory. Older than Cedric, broader across the shoulders. Even more handsome, for his face didn’t have the same boyishness. His hair was a little longer than Cedric's, but it looked just as soft to touch. He looked odd in muggle clothes – jeans and a green apron over a long-sleeved t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A light blue cotton scarf was wound artfully around his neck. His smile, bright with amusement at Christine's words, vanished as his dark grey eyes widened with shock.

"Cedric?" Christine asked, breaking the sudden silence that had fallen over the café. "Are you all right?"

The man went utterly still, gaze fixed on Harry.

Harry kept staring, unable to speak. No. This wasn't possible. He'd seen Cedric die, seen the ghost of his soul pop out of Voldemort's wand. Clutched his lifeless body as the portkey cup spun them to safety.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Christine said.

The man's face was carefully blank. "No, not a ghost."

Christine glanced from the man she called Cedric to Harry and back again. "Do you two know each other?"

"Yes," the man said, at the same time as Harry said, "No."

Christine looked even more confused.

"Harry," the man began, and he stepped closer.

Harry's hand went for his wand. He didn't dare look away from the man who looked like Cedric, because this was impossible, Cedric was dead, and whoever this man was, he was a wizard, an unknown element, and most likely a threat. It couldn't be polyjuice; the stranger would look like Cedric as Harry had last seen him, seventeen years old and fresh with the energy of youth. "Who are you?"

"You know who I am."

"No I don't," Harry said. He knew his tone was hostile; he saw the stranger flinch. How to draw him away from the muggles, strip off his glamour and make him reveal the truth? "The Cedric Diggory I knew is dead."

Christine looked horrified. " _Dead?_ "

Harry resisted the urge to hex her into silence.

The man took a deep breath. "About the graveyard, I can explain."

Harry's grip on his wand tightened. The only people left who knew about the graveyard were Death Eaters. Was this man an escaped Death Eater, then, who thought he could live out his days under the stolen face of a murdered boy?

"There's nothing to explain," Harry said, because he didn't need to hear a Death Eater's lies. The sorrow in the man's eyes was almost palpable, and Harry could feel something in him crumbling, but he refused to give in.

The man's shoulders tightened. "Harry, please, you have to believe me. I wanted to tell you. The entire time, during everything, I wanted so very desperately to tell you."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, coldly polite. "I don't know what you're talking about." He cast a pointed glance at the man's left arm, saw him instinctively reach up and tug down his sleeve – over the edges of a Dark Mark.

He was a Death Eater. It was a nasty, vicious trick – a sick prank thought up by one of Voldemort's unholy sycophants. Harry spun on his heel and crossed the café in two quick strides, threw open the door, and stepped onto the pavement.

His mind spun with fury and rage. Cedric was dead. He'd come to terms with that, and as much as it ached in him, he knew it was true. How _dare_ one of those murderous bastards take on the face of someone like Cedric? Someone strong and good and – Harry took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. It wouldn't do him any good to set off accidental magic in the middle of a muggle town. He had to figure it out, to wait, to plan – catch the Death Eater in the guilty act.

He was _wearing Cedric's face._

The door flew open again. It was _him_ , the impostor, stalking toward a muggle motorbike parked on the curb. He yanked on a pair of gloves, the motions jerky with tension. Harry instinctively ducked behind a giant potted plant, waiting for the man to pass.

"Cedric, where are you going?" The girl, Christine, spilled onto the pavement. Her dark eyes were worried.

"Last interview at Independence," the man said. There was something miserable to the cast of his shoulders, but then he was climbing onto a motorcycle and zooming away from the café.

Harry watched him go. Had he just let an anonymous Death Eater go free? Should he go after him? But then he realized what the man had said. _Independence_. Harry started down the pavement in the direction the motorbike had taken. He had his wand out for a Point Me spell, but Christine's voice stopped him.

"You two _do_ know each other, don't you?" Christine's words were low, almost angry.

Harry ignored her, replaying his conversation with the stranger over in his head, searching for some clue as to who the man really was. He spun to face Christine. "He said he had an interview at 'Independence'. Where is that?" The image of that word scrawled across a piece of parchment burned in his mind.

Christine's expression was wary now. " _Do_ you know Cedric?"

"Just answer the question!" Any other time, Harry might have felt bad for being so rude, but another strange sensation was lodged in his chest, fear and hope and desperation all in one.

Christine looked startled by his yelling. "It's what the locals call Independence House, a group home for troubled teenage girls. Cedric got a job there working the day shift. This is his last week here at the coffee shop. I guess he needs to do one more interview before he starts work. Why?"

Harry's mind spun. It couldn't be what the girl meant on the note, could it? She must have wanted him to catch a rogue Death Eater, one the Ministry would have missed. That had to be it. But what if that man really was Cedric? Even if he wasn't, Harry had to find him. Now. He started down the pavement in the direction the motorbike had gone, then stopped and turned. He had no idea where this Independence House was.

"Miss," he began, then stopped. What the hell was going on? Cedric had survived the graveyard? How? Had he been here this entire time? Why would that girl have led Harry to him now, after all these years?

"You know," Christine said, voice soft, "half the girls who come in here are in love with Cedric. He's a great guy – friendly, kind, polite. Pretty hot to boot. But he never flirts with any of them even though he could have all he wanted and then some. He's in love with someone else, someone he never talks about. I'd almost thought that whoever he was in love with was dead."

Harry stared at her, unsure of what to say.

She smiled, the expression pained. "Cedric's place isn't too far away. I can draw you a map."

"Thank you," Harry said. His chest tightened, and he felt a lump rising in his throat. What would he do once he got there?

Christine sketched him a quick map on a notepad she pulled from her apron pocket. She tore off the top page and handed it to him. "You'll know it as soon as you see it. It has a pretty little English garden and everything, which is magic in Cedarville weather. There's a sign on the front gate that reads 'The Other End'. It's the name of Cedric's house. He says it's a traditional English thing, to name a house."

 _The Other End._ Harry nodded, studied the map for a moment, then set off.

* * *

Harry stared up at the house in question. At first it seemed like any other old house in this town, with grand wooden pillars framing the double doors and supporting an elegant balcony. The entire building wore an air of antique without the grim pallor of death that had permeated the Black ancestral home. The old buildings in this town were lovely.

But then Harry could sense it, little touches of magic here and there - a stopgap for one of the window repairs, some warming charms on a rose trellis.

A hand-painted wooden sign hung on the gate just below the post box. It read, in heartbreakingly familiar handwriting, The Other End. Harry reached out and ran his fingertips over the words. He'd done it a thousand times with those letters.

And then confusion stole over him once more. Tiberius Prince, the Death Eater in the alcove – he'd sent those letters, confirmed it when Harry asked him. But the same phrase had been in the first letter, the one Harry and Hermione had been sure Cedric had written himself. Had Tiberius known about the first letter? Had he known Cedric was alive?

Harry began to pace a line back and forth in front of the gate, wand in hand, trying to sort things through. Too many questions and answers flooded through his mind, and he didn't have a clue as to where to begin, how to even go about deciding whether or not the boy he'd loved could possibly have survived the graveyard and Wormtail's killing curse.

After a good fifteen minutes of pacing, Harry sank down on the edge of the pavement and tilted his head back to stare at the sky. If that man really _was_ Cedric, what could Harry possibly say after all these years? And if that man _wasn't_ Cedric, really was a rogue Death Eater, could Harry kill him? Could he really _kill_ someone, someone who wore Cedric's face?

Harry buried his face in his hands and let out a laugh that sounded, even to him, more like a sob. There was the slightest possibility that Cedric was alive, and he was fighting it. Like he'd fought the notion that Cedric was dead. What the hell was wrong with him? Everything. And that's why he'd run away from home.

"What are you doing here?"

That man's voice came from behind Harry.

He was on his feet, wand out before he even saw who was standing over him. Then he darted a nervous glance at the neighboring houses and lowered his wand, keeping it out of sight.

The stranger stood on the pavement beside the gate, hands in his pockets, looking so utterly like Cedric that Harry couldn't breathe. _Let it be him,_ Harry prayed. If this man wasn't Cedric, Harry wanted this encounter to end quickly and painlessly. He wasn't sure he could take much more.

"Are you really Cedric?" Harry asked. It sounded stupid once he'd said it aloud, but he had to know.

The man closed his eyes but didn't flinch. "Yes, yes I am. I'm so sorry, Harry –"

"Prove it," Harry said.

The man's eyes flew open. He studied Harry's face for a long moment, and Harry wondered if he could see desperate hope in Harry's eyes, the aching need for this man to really be the boy he'd loved. "What do you want to know?"

"Tell me something only Cedric would know."

"We always met in the Charms corridor after supper, whenever you could slip away from your friends. There's an alcove between two suits of armor, shadowed and covered by gaudy red velvet drapes." The man stared at his hands as he spoke, voice muted.

Tiberius Prince had known that too. Harry shook his head. "Something else."

"The first time I kissed you was in the north astronomy tower after the Second Task. I kissed you, and then I ran." The man's voice trembled, ever so slightly, with indescribably fierce emotion.

No. No, it was impossible. Cedric was dead and Tiberius Prince had known too much, possibly everything. There was no way Harry would ever be able to tell whether this man was telling the truth. He searched the man's gaze, and the misery there was undeniable, but even Wormtail, whinging, pitiful creature that he was, had been able to fool Harry's father and mother.

Then Harry remembered the Dark Mark. He lunged.

He caught the man by the throat, wand jammed up against his jaw, muggle witnesses be damned. "Who the hell are you? You can't be Cedric Diggory. Cedric is _dead_. I saw him die with my own eyes and I saw his soul return from Voldemort's wand." Harry's mind was spinning. This man couldn't be Cedric. He couldn't be. After all those months of hoping and waiting and praying that Cedric was alive, Harry had accepted that he was dead, and nothing was going to change that. Nothing changed death. "Who are you? Because, by Merlin, I'll kill you if you're a Death Eater."

The man's grey eyes were bleak, and his expression was resigned. Harry knew that resignation. It was the same resignation Harry had felt when he'd left Tiberius in the Charms corridor and went to face Voldemort.

"I'll kill you if you're one of them," Harry said.

"And if I'm really Cedric?"

Harry recoiled sharply. Something in the man's voice was – shattered. Into thousands of painful shards that burrowed their way under one's skin and wormed their way into a broken heart. Harry knew that sensation, had lived with it every day for nearly a year before he'd forced himself to push the feeling away, to thrust it into a pit of numbness and ignore it so he could function – so he could fight.

"And if I'm really Cedric?" the man asked again. He stepped closer, and Harry was suddenly awash in his warmth, and instinctively Harry slid closer.

The man gazed into Harry's eyes, searching, and Harry could only gaze back at him, mesmerized by that perfect shade of grey he'd almost forgotten.

"Harry?"

His grip on his wand tightened.

"Harry – _please_."

Something in Harry broke. He lunged again, this time up, up to meet the man's mouth as he dragged the man's head down for a kiss.

Sensation left him awash in memory. Arms wound around Harry's waist and tugged him closer, flush against another warm body, and Harry reveled. He twined his fingers in soft hair and deepened the kiss.

Yes. He knew this – the emotion and taste, touch and rhythm of hearts beating as one. This was late nights in the Charms corridor, laughing into kisses for fear of being caught by other prefects. This was ducking into an alcove for a stolen kiss and caress between classes. This was – was a tangle of limbs on a stone floor on the night Harry was supposed to die.

Shock crashed over him like an icy wave, and he jerked back. Cedric let him.

"That was you," he said. "In the corridor, with the Death Eater mask. It was you sending the letters; it was you all along. Why didn’t you tell me? "

"I'm sorry," Cedric said and lowered his gaze.

Joy and relief ballooned in Harry's chest. All those months of fighting to accept the truth, the reality Hermione told him he needed to focus on to win the war – she'd been wrong. They'd both been wrong.

It was getting hard to breathe.

"How?"

"I told you I'd be waiting for you at the other end. Of everything." He caught Harry by the waist and dragged him close, leaned in to nuzzle Harry’s neck.

"I love you," Harry breathed, relaxing into the embrace.

He pressed closer, wrapped his arms around Cedric tighter. The man in his arms was real – alive and breathing and here with him. The arms around his waist tightened again, and Cedric rested his chin on Harry's head. Even after all these years, Cedric was still taller. Harry tilted his head to the side so he could rest against Cedric's shoulder, and there it was, that playful nuzzle at his jaw that Cedric knew drove him mad. It tickled and it turned him on, and – Harry closed his eyes and took another deep breath, inhaling the scent of male, of comfort, of _Cedric_ , and wondered what he could do with his life now, now that the war was over and he'd found the one he loved, and –

Harry didn't know whether he should laugh, scream, or cry. Cedric stroked his hair gently, the motion soothing. Harry felt something in his chest wrench – to think he'd ever doubted that the man in his arms, the man who still knew what to do to make him feel better, was anyone but Cedric.

Finally, he pulled back and studied the little sign on the front gate. "'The Other End.' Did you have this planned? Did you know you would be here, that I would be here? That the strange girl would send me here?"

Cedric shook his head. "No. I – I was afraid I would never see you again. But I promised myself that I would be right here, waiting for you to find me."

"I found you." Harry buried his face in Cedric's shoulder. "And I'm not leaving you. I love you."

Cedric smiled against his skin. "I love you, too."

After a moment, Cedric pulled back and gazed at Harry, grey eyes alight with something inexplicable – joy, relief, love – and what Harry hoped was a little lust. Then, for no reason Harry could understand, Cedric looked nervous. He dragged a hand through his hair. "Er…do you want some tea? We can –"

Harry laughed and tugged Cedric down for another kiss. He didn't know how and he didn't know why, but Cedric was still alive, and Harry was in his arms. He vowed to himself that, no matter how unspeakably complicated the circumstances, they would never lose each other again.


End file.
